Staples Targets Managed Services to SMBs
Competition just got a little stiffer. Staples Network Services by Thrive, a relatively new division within the Staples franchise, is offering managed services to SMBs.
By Cecilia Galvinalvin
Competition just got a little stiffer. Staples Network Services by Thrive, a relatively new division within the Staples franchise, is offering managed services to businesses with 20 to 250 employees–the heart of the SMB market.
“We think that’s a wide-open market,”says Jim Lippie, president of Staples Network Services by Thrive, headquartered in Framingham, Mass. “No other provider in our industry has ever scaled a national offering for small businesses. We’re excited because we feel we’re in a position to do that.”
Unlike EasyTech, the company’s more reactive, retail-based IT program for SOHOs and microbusinesses, Staples Network Services by Thrive offers a full suite of services–made possible by the company’s acquisition of Thrive Networks, formerly an independent IT solution provider in the Boston area.
The three services include Thrive Protect, which offers anti-spam, -virus, and -spyware, along with patch management and systems and network monitoring and support. Thrive Onsite extends the Protect service with in-person engineering support and services, and Thrive Online Backup, as the name implies, automatically copies data from PCs and servers over an encrypted connection to a remote storage facility.
The company uses both the Kaseya and N-able managed services platforms to provide services in the Boston and Atlanta areas. But, according to Lippie, “We have growth plans over the coming months to move to other markets and become a nationwide player.”
Cecilia GalvinALVIN is executive editor of ChannelPro-SMB.
