At which price point are we competitive enough?

Last week, after I changed up my presentation at MSPU to be a little more straight forward, I got to have several conversations with people who were extremely concerned not about the cloud, but their ability to compete with those that choose to go with it. Quote:

“With both Microsoft and Postini clearly advertising their pricing on the web site, I am finding it more and more difficult to offer solutions because clients are asking why they are paying so much more?”

This is where I give you my brilliant solution to the above problem.

I wish I had one. Sadly, I don’t.

This is something that has been beaten to death on Vladville since 2007 so I’ll sum up 3 years of posts in one paragraph: We’re seeing consumerization of business solutions which are making VAR/MSP margins tighter and technical solutions reduced to recommending which vendor to sign up with. As the technical competence becomes less and less relevant, the transition from a technology company to a marketing company becomes critical… for survival.

P.S. I’d like to take this opportunity to clear the air about the speculation my investments and about what I’m working on during my leave of absence and to which extent it’s going to help the above problem: It’s not. What I’m spending money on and building has everything to do with the paragraph above and absolutely nothing with the ability to price compete with a $5 Exchange mailbox or a $1 antispam solution. So please don’t buy the stories you’re hearing, if you’re concerned I’m one of the easiest people to reach – feel free to ask.