Managed Service Provider Week in Review

A number of key acquisitions and industry forecasts peppered the managed service provider (MSP) landscape this week, propelling growth and change for a number of niche segments. Among the highlights were two key industry reports reflecting spectacular growth for managed security services as well as the burgeoning eDiscovery market.

Infonetics Research reports the market for cloud-based managed security services and customer premises equipment (CPE) services reached $13 billion last year. The research firm views managed services as the answer to cloud security worries, and summarized the state of the industry in its new report, "Cloud and CPE Managed Security Services."

Among other findings, Infonetics reports the market increased 12 percent last year, driven by CPE-based services. They also predict cloud-based security services will grow 69 percent in the next five years.

The eDiscovery market is also slated for major growth, with The Radicati Group predicting it will jump from $976 million last year to $2.35 billion by 2016. MSPs are taking advantage of this enormous potential, with eDiscovery MSP Modus announcing a new fixed fee service this week.

The service covers discovery work for specific projects, collections through productions and a particular process or process group.

This week brought acquisition announcements as well, with IT solutions provider American Digital Corporation purchasing Helixstorm. The latter is a provider of virtualization and managed service solutions, and will help American Digital expand its managed and professional services business as well as reach the West Coast market, since Helixstorm is based in California.

MSP TekLinks announced a play in the healthcare arena by acquiring ClinicAnywhere, a provider of practice management and billing solutions. TekLinks provides managed and cloud services as well as IT solutions. The MSP will branch out into the healthcare space with ClinicAnywhere, which will retain some of its branding through the deal.

A major partnership was also announced between Global Capacity and Earthlink, Inc. Network services and connectivity provider Global Capacity has established a buy and sell agreement with Earthlink, slated to extend network reach for both providers. The partnership has Global Capacity's One Marketplace providing Earthlink with automated pricing and service delivery for network access solutions.