SM Mobile Strategy & Growth

A little bit on strategery here just so we’re smoking the same stuff..

Today we announced the Android native application for Shockey Monkey:

It’s joining native applications on iPhone and iPad – none of that webkit / slow junk anymore, we’re spending a lot of time expanding the mobile offering very quickly and I thought I’d offer you some perspective as to why in case you haven’t figured it out yet.

Why?

As you’ve seen by our ExchangeDefender business model, things are growing very rapidly and we are expanding our solution portfolio in a manner that we believe will allow our partners to grow exponentially.

The launch of branded support and branded migration services removes the “human”  “tech” factor involved in service delivery, it basically allows the solution provider to not be a salesman and a plumber at the same time. Everyone wants the salesman salary, nobody wants the sanitary waste mess on their hands that comes from supporting someone elses product/service or the solution. At the same time, there are no shortcuts – someone still has to do the work, the tools are still necessary to fall back on if “best case scenario” doesn’t work out and… well, I wish I had more developers and I wish I could take on more business but we’re moving as fast as possible with the resources we’ve got and we’re trying to do it right instead of doing it quick.

So what you are seeing with the agenda of Shockey Monkey and ExchangeDefender – with the fascination with mobility and the fascination with the remote access/management with Unicorn 2 and focus on storage with LocalCloud – is a convergence of the stuff we know works and stuff our clients and partners are begging us for.

This tends to piss people off. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I know that you’d rather see us focus on the legacy stuff and you’d rather optimize the heck out of the old way of doing things… but my business model is very simple: I do what people are willing to pay for. And the cold hard ugly truth is that people are not willing to pay the top dollar for minor enhancements of stuff they already have that works for them.

They want a solution that dramatically improves their efficiency.

While a tweak or two to the desktop or web experience is always on a to-do list, I’m getting hounded day and night to support mobile devices because high profile (read: employees in organizations in charge of spending money) are not walking around with laptops.

While a solution to a gaping hole in the portfolio might make some of my partners more entrenched with a client… the ability to offer migrations, support, new solutions and not having to do any of the hard work to get it – will grow your business, not just make it stickier until the client pulls the plug.

I understand that there is a conflict. There is comfort in safety and lack of ground breaking changes minimizes the risk of having to do more work. I understand that.

The positive solution to this conflict is to be able to do more.

We are seeing the opportunity in converging the service (migrations, support, billing) with the products (ExchangeDefender, cloud, Exchange, Lync, storage, Compliance Encryption and Archiving) with the business process (Shockey Monkey) and deliver to small and medium business what enterprise has been able to enjoy for a decade. Like an IBM commercial, minus the 8 figure bill.

The good news is that if you really hate me and what we’re doing, you have other options. We’ve considered that. Other options are doing nothing (going to conferences trying to find more clients, trying to find more people to sell legacy stuff) or fortifying a legacy tool with stuff that would make your business look amazing for 2010.

We’re investing in our solution and in our partners to make you great for 2014 and beyond because we have full faith that we’re not going to be going out of business (or on the sales block) anytime soon. Perhaps that’s something you ought to ask yourself when it comes to the vendor choices you’re making – is the service changing with the market demands or are they just trying to monetize (ie, take more of your money sooner) me in the short term because they have no faith in me long term.

That answer ought to answer far more than I ever could on this blog.