What is the word most likely to be heard at a non-technical security conference? If you said, "Managed Services," "Managed Information technology services," "Managed Solutions" or some variant of it, then you have been spending too much time at security conferences.
Managed Services is the idea that you take some piece of your company and have someone else do it. Companies typically take something that is expensive for them to do and then outsource it. For instance, most large companies pay an accounting firm, such as a Big 4, to do their taxes instead of having a dedicated tax department. This of course is an analog managed service, and is sometimes regulated by compliance. Another analog managed service would be a law firm.
The type of managed service this article is referring to is a digital one. The idea that you can pay someone to outsource some piece of your general solution. That could be web hosting services or security services.
Although managed services is not a new idea, it is gaining snow-ball style momentum. There are, of course, companies who have built their entire model on Managed Services such as Savvis and Akamai. More recently, larger companies are jumping on the band wagon to also offer managed solutions. These companies include, AT&T, BT, and an unlikely candidate Amazon with their S3 cloud/EC2.
So, if you want to make sure your company can play with the big boys, make sure you have a managed service solution.
Note: Totally off topic from the Buzzword itself is the site, www.managedsoultion.com. They cashed in on the buzzword and actually named the company after the buzzword. I am going to start making a note on each buzzword to see if any other companies have done the same. Great Marketing!
