Nemertes Impact Analysis

The Impact Analysis is a weekly quick-take on breaking IT news.
Nemertes provides expert insight on how recent IT news affects you.

Services now a "STAPLE" for many SMBs 

Staples (NASDAQ: SPLS) has joined the many retail resellers moving into the
IT services space, announcing Staples Network Services by Thrive. The offering,
aimed at SMBs, has three services; Thrive Protect (security), Thrive Onsite (in
person support), and Thrive On-line Backup (data protection services).

Interest in IT professional services is on the rise. Seventy percent of SMBs
are using, or planning to use some flavor of managed or professional IT
services, according to Nemertes' recent Unified Communications and
Collaboration benchmark.

Impacts:

Enterprises: SMBs should consider this low-cost service, especially those
with little or no IT staff.

Vendors: Your offerings must include a solid security and DR Service, as both
are becoming increasingly important for SMBs struggling with compliance issues.

Investors: This could make for some interesting competition for HP (NYSE:HPQ)
and Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), as they support PCs, Macs, and Linux systems.

Katherine Trost, Research Analyst

http://www.nemertes.com/benchmarks/unified_communications_and_collaboration

http://www.thrivenetworks.com/about-us/staples-launches-staples-network-services-by-thrive.html