Pertino Enlists Spiceworks for SMB Cloud Networking Beta

Pertino, a Los Gatos, Calif.-based startup, is setting out redefine remote networking for small businesses with a new cloud-based networking platform. And in the months leading up to the firm's first product release -- Pertino is eyeing an early 2013 launch according to vice president of marketing Todd Krautkremer – it's teaming with the 2.2 million member strong SMB IT specialist community at Spiceworks to beta test its tech.

Why Spiceworks? According to Krautkremer, the community is brimming with "SMB pros hungry to share their knowledge and experience." It also aligns with the company's mission to "deliver innovation straight to SMBs," he adds.

Pertino is banking that Spiceworks' experts will help the company combat the enterprise IT myopia that's gripping the industry. And nowhere is it more apparent than in the networking market.

SMBs Get the Short Shrift

When it comes to IT networking, the deck is stacked against small businesses, says Krautkremer. While there's no shortage of solutions aimed at small and midsized businesses (SMBs), vendors rarely extend the same functionality and levels of integration to small businesses that their enterprise customers get.

As a result, SMBs are often treated like second-class citizens, despite the fact that they "employ about 90 percent of the workforce and are responsible for 50 percent of all IT spend," says Krautkremer. To add insult to injury, they're often forced to piece together networking systems that are a poor match for their needs, are tough to manage, or both.

Yet, "Small businesses face many of the same challenges" as big corporations, argues Krautkremer. For instance, SMBs can have "supply chains that reach around the world." What they don't have, generally speaking, are the budgets and IT expertise to support increasingly complex business processes.

In other words, "they will never buy a packet-shaper," says Krautkremer.

What they are likely to do, however, is subscribe to cloud services that deliver the network functionality that allows them compete on the global stage. Pertino is banking that their cloud-based networking platform and the Spiceworks' influence will "enable SMBs to level the playfield."

Pertino Cloud Networking

Put simply, "we have basically have taken networking and put in the cloud," says Krautkremer. Ease of use and management is also a big for the company. "We make it really simple for businesses of any size to set up a worldwide enterprise-class network," he says.

Gone are VPNs and complex IP addressing schemes, says Krautkremer. Pertino takes an "office LAN and literally extends it to the cloud to wherever [an organization's] people work," adds Krautkremer. "I can be connected to my office network just as if I were sitting in the office."

While many of the particulars are under wraps for now, Spiceworks members will be among the first to put Pertino's tech through its paces. Currently, Pertino is running a private beta. It will be extended to include a community-wide beta next month.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.