So why am I commenting on a two year old blog post? Well, the discussion above struck me as being exactly the same principle currently being debated in the ICT industry, especially by SME suppliers. Yep, the break/fix versus managed service question.

This was debated at the recent CompTIA UK Channel Community meeting, following Gareth Brown (Twitter – @GarethBrown) of Sytec’s engaging presentation. The clear distinction – and one *most* of the people there seemed to want to move to – was the managed service model, with proactive service and monthly recurring revenues usually on a fixed charge basis. Obviously there will always be a place for the break/fix reactive Charge As You Go (CAYG) providers because there will always be PAYG customers, but the consensus seemed to be that a preferable business model is monthly recurring charges.

I offer no opinion on Sky (as one of the sheep I have every Sky TV service going, and consume very little of it) and as a Liverpool FC supporter most could guess my general opinion of Sky’s owners (clue – it’s not that high)- I was just struck by the similarity of debate.

There is however one BIG difference – all of the SME ICT Suppliers are part of a massive (39,000+ the last time I counted) community of competing businesses so the customer can exercise choice and drive the shape of the supply side.

Sky however are as near to being a monopoly (actually, the official defintion of a commercial monopoly is having 25% or more of a defined market, so how they are not, and hence carved up as required by law – oops, being side-tracked and stating ranting)as makes no difference, so they alone can shape the supply side. That’s the problem to me, because competition might well lead to break/fix or program by program options.

So there we go – Andy can’t get Sky on a pay-per-play basis because the SME ICT industry wants to be MSP focussed, Sky are monopolistic bullies and to add insult to injury his local pub doesn’t have Sky.