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Certified Nets, Inc. Receives 2008 Best of St Louis Award

U.S. Local Business Association’s Award Plaque Honors the Achievement

WASHINGTON D.C., July 20, 2008 -- Certified Nets, Inc. has been selected for the 2008 Best of St Louis Award in the Computer Systems Consultants category by the U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA).

The USLBA "Best of Local Business" Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USLBA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2008 USLBA Award Program focused on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USLBA and data provided by third parties.

About U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA)
U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA) is a Washington D.C. based organization funded by local businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of USLBA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and advertising.

The USLBA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.

SOURCE: U.S. Local Business Association

CONTACT:
U.S. Local Business Association
Email: PublicRelations@USLBA.net
URL: http://www.USLBA.net
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Certified NETS is featured in ComputerWorld's Special Report on Outsourcing.

The article has to do with VAR's (value added reseller or systems integrator) vs. ASP's vs. MSP's (Managed Service Provider). Certified Nets serves as a "VAR" for some customers and as an "MSP" for other customers.

An excerpt

------------------------ EXCERPT ---------

Similar to Interim, LaBarge Inc., an electronics manufacturing services provider in St. Louis, couldn't justify hiring a full-time staff member to monitor its data center for equipment failures, power outages or temperature fluctuations. Still, it wanted to know of problems right away, especially if they happened outside of business hours.

LaBarge hired Certified Nets Inc., an MSP, that uses SilverBack Technologies Inc.'s SilverStreak Management Tunnel, which performs remote monitoring of IP devices over the Internet.

Tweaking the system to LaBarge's needs took a few months, says George Hayward, director of information systems, during which time the MSP set up who needed to be alerted to what. During a two-day power outage caused by storms, the MSP alerted LaBarge's IT staff that the air conditioning in the data center hadn't been powered up by the generator, enabling the company to address the issue before systems failed.

Hayward is considering using an MSP for his storage systems as well. "It used to be a question of whether we could get our data off-site fast and cheap enough, but with bandwidth being as cheap and plentiful as it is now, that's not a gating issue," Hayward says. He will likely go with a hybrid model, but privacy is a major consideration.

"I'm not sure all our customers would be comfortable with that," he says.

Full Story:
http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/outsourcing/story/0,10801,106128,00.html

This story is part of a Special Report on MSPs:
http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/outsourcing/report/0,11188,11142005,00.html

Article specifically on VAR's vs. ASP's vs. MSP's:
http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/outsourcing/story/0,10801,106129,00.html

Certified NETS and its president, Robyn Howes, continue to be acknowledged as an expert in delivering MSP to small businesses.

Howes was interviewed and quoted in an article in CRN magazine, the leading magazine for VARs and technology innovators. Following is an excerpt.

Surprisingly, there are even some small-business customers interested in managed services who can actually stomach a degree of network downtime and thus can be priced accordingly, said Robyn Howes, president of Certified NETS.

In business for nearly 10 years ..., Howes has learned how to make it easier for many small businesses to add managed services by lowering the barrier of entry below the cost of keeping a network up 24x7, she said.

"What we do is let an emergency be determined by the customer," Howes said of her team's approach to pricing managed services for many of its small-business customers. "For some small businesses, paper still exists, [so] they can manage. They just need to prioritize what is important and what is not.

"And if there ends up being too much downtime, we'll make a recommendation,"
she said. "We've never lost a customer that chose to do it that way. And if they have a problem, they usually look at it as a wake up call."

http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=168600484&flatPage=true