And, while many of those companies offer services that are legitimately valuable to the MSP market, many so-called MSP vendors offer services of questionable relevance, featuring minor alterations to make them more appealing, says Charles Weaver, president of managed services association the MSPAlliance (mspalliance.com)

"A lot of our regular members were confused about which vendors were really meaningful and important to the MSP ecosystem," says Weaver. "They said 'why don't we benchmark these vendors and give them an accreditation just like we have with the MSP accreditation?'"

In response, the MSPAlliance formed the Vendor Accreditation Program, specifically designed by MSPs as a benchmark for vendors who offer products and services designed for the MSP market. The VAP seal indicates to MSPs that a vendor can be trusted and that its products or solutions are specifically designed for MSPs.

VAP is based on four criteria considered key by MSPs. The first is business practices, which focuses on channel development, channel competition safeguards and experience in the managed services industry. The product roadmap looks at a vendor's willingness to invest in its products in order to ensure continued relevance for the MSPs. The financial aspect analyzes the financial stability of a vendor to ensure adequate support of channel initiatives and product development. Finally, the vendor must provide at least three MSP specific client references.

So far, eight vendors have received the VAP seal, including Intel, SilverBack/Dell, Asigra, Untangle, XRoads Networks, LiveCargo, N-able and Do IT Smarter. Weaver says he hopes the number of VAP accredited vendors will increase to 50 by the end of the year.

Accredited vendors will receive primary placement on the MSPAlliance website as well as preferred status with the group's 2,000 MSP members. However, as Weaver explains, the VAP is just as beneficial for MSPs as it is for vendors.

"The benefit for the MSP in this program is that they can now search and do shopping for different technologies and actually find out if a vendor knows what they're talking about," says Weaver. "The benefit to the vendors is they will get a lot more market exposure, they will identify themselves immediately to any interested channel company that they are ready for managed services, that they have a channel program that is healthy and designed for an MSP."

The MSPAlliance also announced an initiative to develop an MSP "ecosystem", which will partner MSPAlliance's Managed Services Accreditation Program and Intel's vPro technology with accredited MSPs and vendors to offer high quality managed services and products to end-user consumers throughout the world.

Designed for business users, Intel vPro processor technology offers greater hardware-based security than software alone, as well as manageability features that decrease the need for desk side maintenance visits for the business PC.

Next year, Intel and the MSPAlliance will tour the globe to raise awareness among MSPs about vPro technology and the benefits of becoming an accredited MSP.

"[Since] vPro works with all the different MSP platforms they are in a very unique position because they don't really compete with any other company out there," says Weaver. "They're very interested in having the MSP accreditation integrate and work with vPro. They want accredited members using [VAP] because they believe it's a more secure method for delivering managed services."