Cloud confidence - MessageLabs cements partnership

Auckland managed service provider LANcom Technology is so confident in the future of SaaS it has formed a partnership with security company MessageLabs and has moved all its customers' email and web security into the cloud.Phill Claxton, LANcom Technology Service Manager, says the move is designed to shift towards standardisation."As a managed service provider, we want to work towards standardisation, so SaaS is a strong focus for us in terms of software development," he says. "SaaS provides one central configuration and makes application deployment much easier."The service offered by MessageLabs is a single, manageable service with a fixed budget that enables customers' businesses to run smoothly without them needing to touch it.MessageLabs provides increased spam and virus filtering for all LANcom's customers, as well as allowing tighter reporting so the value of the service can be more clearly reiterated, Claxton explains. He also believes there is a changing mindset towards managed service: "Although managed service has not always been accepted, companies are starting to see the value in it as they realise how reliant they are on IT. Businesses don't want to have to worry about spam ? they want an out-of-the-box filtering solution they can set up and not need to configure or monitor." LANcom's new partnership with MessageLabs allows it to provide benefits such as web filtering, email archiving and email retention to its customers as a service, rather than as a complex application that requires time and funds to implement.