Atlanta is really not much different from other geographies. In Atlanta, just like elsewhere, IT is increasingly looking to focus on their expertise and skills, and outsource less strategic functions to managed service providers.
The eight-year-old Landon focuses on local service to Atlanta, New York, and Jacksonville. In each case the offerings include infrastructure management, support, monitoring, hosting and managing servers, e-mail, disaster recovery and help desk.
Business is apparently particularly brisk in Atlanta. With such a range, small local Atlanta business can have most of their IT needs take care of through a provider, and focus hiring on employees that add unique value and drive the business.
“In the last 12 months, we have seen an unexpected growth in our managed services business. We have emerged as a fast growing managed IT service provider in Atlanta and have been adding at least a dozen of customers every month. We are very much sure to double this growth in 2013, as more companies are now realizing the importance of managed IT services,” a company executive claimed.
Services go beyond IT as companies like Landon also helps clients set up new offices or relocate. With its breadth, the company is really in the broad category of Managed IT Services, meaning it aims to take over large swath of IT responsibility rather than just focus on discrete functions.
IT Services on the Rise
This market is growing strongly, with a few caveats, according to CompTIA. The non-profit industry association surveyed members and found the demand for Managed IT Services rising steadily, although that growth is held back a bit by the growing presence of cloud computing. Cloud services are causing IT shops to examine internal staffing needs and organization, and to reevaluate overall strategy.
Those surveyed are channel partners, and some half of these outfits today offer some form of managed service. Last time the survey was done, 40 percent of those same companies were into services.
“The managed services model is becoming more commonly practiced across the channel and generating demand among end users,” remarked Carolyn April, director, industry analysis, CompTIA. “It’s a steadily growing market that is not going away despite some uncertainty.”
But the path is not clear cut, CompTIA found. Many MSP market participants are dipping their toes in the water, rather than jumping in headlong.
“The incidence of pure play MSPs is pretty low,” said April. “It’s still an added practice as part of an overall business. Many, if not most, MSPs continue to sell hardware and other infrastructure to their customers, do the implementation and only then take over management of said devices under a managed services contract.”
Edited by
Amanda Ciccatelli
