CRN: Part of the problem is that because they're small businesses only their customers are affected other than themselves, so there's much less opportunity for breaches to be reported.
McKinnel: It's almost the blind leading the blind. Small-medium business owners, dealer principals, are concerned about working capital, industrial relations - front of mind is about business tools and availability. The concept of dedicating mindshare to having their IT shop squeaky clean just doesn't enter their psyche.
They look towards their trusted advisors and the small-to-medium reseller community. And they probably do a great job of running up servers, doing AV, building laptops and things, but when it comes to the more sophisticated disciplines, whether security or CRM optimisation, the skills are just not there. There's a skills shortage in the enterprise market. I can tell you, trying to find skilled practitioners in security is very, very difficult.
CRN: Are others seeing that as well - finding it hard to find people?
Scott Hayman, Distribution Central: I think it's all about education. I don't think the SMB resellers have enough time on their hands. A lot of them are very busy and don't necessarily have enough time to actually put their staff through the training to educate themselves.
They just seem to be at the moment out there in the market flogging as much stuff as they can just to stay afloat but actually falling back on the certification side of things and not keeping themselves certified enough.
We have various resellers out there which are deploying solutions every day of the week but not necessarily understanding the technology. So we have a bit of a push at the moment in regards to certification around that channel and getting these guys up to speed on the technology they're actually selling every day of the week.
CRN: What aren't they understanding?
Hayman: I think in the SMB reseller community there's a general misconception around VoIP. One of the things we specialise in is VOIP in Distribution Central in the unisystems division. A lot of resellers are selling and installing the stuff but when there's a fault or an issue over security or a firewall is not allowing VOIP to pass through it they just throw their hands up.
VOIP is a so-called mainstream term now, but if you ask these SMB guys how much they actually know about HV3 or putting SIP through a firewall or proxies, they don't have a clue about it.
There is certainly a lack of investment in the knowledge in the channel because I just don't think they have the time to invest in their certifications. We run week-long courses and three-day courses and they're just finding it hard to even get their guys on these courses because they're flat out.
CRN: What are the consequences of not having that knowledge?
Hayman: The consequences, and I see this every day of the week, is that they lose face with the customers really quickly. So the sales guy has done his job and sold a VoIP solution and it gets to the point of installation and there's maybe a firewall that's blocking it or something in the way. It's causing problems and immediately they're throwing their hands up in the air because they don't have the actual skills because they haven't invested in the technology that they're actually selling. So that's an area I feel is very weak at the moment is the actual education in the channel, especially around the VOIP area...
Pregnell: We are also working very hard to get a lot of resellers, both small and large, certified and trained up. We're finding it difficult as well. We've pegged it back from day-long courses now to just come along for two hours, do whatever you can to keep them knowledgeable and trained up.
A little bit of knowledge is dangerous for the SMB - they're reluctant sometimes to hand over to the experts. It's like this is what we do, let me do it, you want VoIP we'll do it for you.
I see my friend struggling with it all the time. there's nothing wrong with the systems themselves but in some cases he doesn't have control of the network and they're still going through their mate that set up the internet set up five years ago, and don't have a good pipe any more and he can't fix that...
Friend: Where the problem comes in is where the reseller doesn't necessarily have the skills in-house to be able to support a network so you get this barrier between the VOIP guys installing the phone system and the network guys, because there's never anything wrong with the network, right?...
Pregnell: I've had that, absolutely.
Penno: You ought to work for a networking vendor, mate. It's always the network. (laughter)
McKinnel: You should try selling firewalls, it's the lowest common denominator.
Friend: The same reseller, because they don't have the ability and haven't been doing the training, they often don't even have the ability to articulate what the problem is to the firewall guy or the networking guy. So they end up spending five or six times the amount of time they should solving the issue.
Pregnell: As more stuff moves into the cloud, sometimes two or three providers will be forced to talk to each other to solve a problem and they're not always cooperative - just by nature they might be competitors or they might be in slightly different spaces. So this is where I think solutions for small business are important, to try and have more control over the solution by having ownership of more of its moving parts.
And that is a behaviour that is contrary to the incumbent mindset of the SMB. It's a thing that we all struggle with, because again it sounds like we're trying to sell them more, and I guess you are at the end of the day, but it's not just for that purpose that we're trying to do this.
Next: CRN: It is easy to understand viruses, but the loss of time and efficiencies with poor management, it must be hard to communicate that too?
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