Ten years ago, Amazon waded into the world of online computing with their Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service, Apple was unveiling the ability to buy full-length feature films on iTunes, and the very first tweet went out on Twitter. But big brands weren’t the only ones making changes. A young man in North Carolina — me — bought a server and started his own hosting company after seeing the need for quality hosting and IT services in his area — and PointClick Technologies was born.
A lot has changed over the last decade, but in no industry is the change more apparent than in the field of Cloud computing. This year, PointClick marks 10 years of partnership with six of our very first clients, and we’d like to take a look at how far Cloud service provider benefits have come.
Who is PointClick?
Back in 2006, no one was really thinking about Cloud services. I was providing IT services – a common starting point for many of today’s Cloud services providers. I’d go into businesses and fix desktops, repair servers and assist with IT issues. A discovery I made when hired to deploy new PCs in several mid-Atlantic American Red Cross chapters, and the steps I took to provide them with a better, easier-to-use product, led me to a conference where I first met with R2i, and ultimately, to form PointClick Technologies.
I built PointClick from the ground up, with the goal of providing better quality hosting services for my IT clients and other area businesses. Based in Raleigh, N.C., PointClick now offers Cloud managed hosting and Managed Azure services to companies up and down the Eastern seaboard. We are proud to support many local businesses in our area, and also count names like the American Red Cross, the NFL, and AutoTrader.com among our clients.
10 Years of Cloud Service Provider Benefits
We’ve had some amazing clients over our 10 years, and when asked how we’ve maintained these relationships for so long, I like to point out the plaques that we’ve had created for our 10th anniversary: the first line says, “10 Years of Partnership” – that’s the secret. We have never looked at our customers as a vendor-client relationship; we’re partners, and we’re invested in the success of all these amazing organizations:
- The American Red Cross
- R2i
- Linkconnector
- Diamond Touch Construction
- Barefoot Press
- Amazing Luxury Cars
There isn’t really a common theme running through that list at first glance – a charitable organization, marketing agencies, builders, printers and car dealers surely don’t have much in common. But what binds them together is the Cloud service provider benefits they’ve been able to realize over the past decade. Whether they first came to PointClick because they needed a website built (yes, we used to do that!) or help to manage their IT, our team was always working to go above and beyond, and provide them with better service than simply meeting our contractual obligations.
As Cloud computing emerged in the mainstream and began to gain popularity, we realized the advantages it could provide, and helped our clients make the move. What started out as basic hosting and IT troubleshooting grew into managed services, and we’ve helped many of our partner clients realize Cloud service benefits that have helped them save money, develop their own client lists, and streamline workflows and processes to improve the way they work.
Why Choose Managed Cloud?
Partnering with a managed Cloud service provider benefits companies in a variety of ways. The advantages of Cloud are often touted as the “ilities” – flexibility, agility, and scalability – but there are further gains to working with a managed Cloud services provider:
- Customization – you can get solutions created specifically to meet your business needs
- Evolution – managed services partners can recognize and deploy new solutions before clients even realize they need them
- Reliability and security – your managed services partner’s only job is to keep your IT and hosting services running smoothly
- Financial savings – the cost of managed services is low when compared to the price of hosting your data and systems on-premises and hiring staff to maintain them
- Monitoring – when you’ve got a managed services provider proactively monitoring your systems, the likelihood of issues goes down, and efficiency increases
- Visible results – you’ll get greater system transparency and insight into how your resources are performing with regular business reviews from your managed services partner
At PointClick, we aren’t in the business of simply selling Cloud services — we are striving to learn more about our clients and their pain points — because the better we know them, the more we can solve their problems. That’s where we feel working with a managed Cloud services provider benefits our clients most – it’s not about the product we sell, it’s about the partnership with our customers and working with them to minimize those pain points.
If you’d like to learn more about how working with a managed Cloud service provider can benefit your team, our experts are always here to help. Get in touch with us at PointClick Technologies today for advice on Public, Private or Hybrid Cloud hosting, as well as our wide range of other managed services.
