{"id":109,"date":"2026-11-02T14:21:55","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T13:21:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/it-news\/msp-of-the-month-november-virtual-computing\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T15:01:39","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T14:01:39","slug":"msp-of-the-month-november-virtual-computing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/operations-and-organisation\/msp-of-the-month-november-virtual-computing\/","title":{"rendered":"MSP of the Month, November: Virtual Computing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every month we sit down with an MSP for a proper conversation. What’s going well? What problems did you run into? How do you see the market? Because it’s good to compare notes every now and then: how do you actually do it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the bar this month: Mohammad Moghtader, CTO and co-owner of Virtual Computing from Oisterwijk in the Netherlands. He dials in from a client in Eindhoven, where he is single-handedly cleaning up a network. Virtual Computing is a small MSP in terms of FTEs but a large one in terms of clients, with its own online workspaces in the Interconnect data centre and a young team that almost entirely started out as interns.<\/p>\n

Who are you and what sets you apart from other MSPs?<\/h3>\n

Virtual Computing was founded around 2006 by Robin Damen while he was studying computer science in Breda. ‘Back then you had the Starterslift. You were assigned a classroom, that was your little office, and the school helped you start the business.’ Mohammad joined in 2010 as an intern from a Dutch vocational (MBO) programme, continued his studies all the way to a master’s degree and worked his way up to CTO.<\/p>\n

What sets the company apart? His first reflex is the sales pitch, he admits. The real answer comes at the end of the conversation. ‘Everyone’s motto is personal, personal, personal. For us I’d say: family. Our people have worked here so long that clients always hear the same names. A client only has to mention the name of their organisation and those guys know the entire configuration almost by heart.’ And proactive. ‘We put more on our own plate than we need to. But then we know we’re compliant and up to date.’ He sees the difference with clients who switch from a competitor. ‘Then they’re running Windows Server 2016, even though that provider holds ISO 27001. Why didn’t they upgrade you? Well, then we’d have had to pay four or five grand for the migration. It’s our responsibility to keep the client working on an up-to-date system, so you don’t penalise them for that. I read something about AI? Well, we’re already a year ahead.’<\/p>\n

Which client suits you best, and which doesn’t?<\/h3>\n

‘In theory everyone, as long as it’s an SME. Our smallest client is a sole trader, the largest has three hundred people on our platform.’ The biggest segment is healthcare: dentists, physiotherapists. That grew through software vendors running their applications in the cloud because no SaaS solution was available yet. ‘We host those on our platform. And then the client thinks: if that program is already with you, why don’t I put my Office and my accounting package there too?’ The average client has been with Virtual Computing for ten years. ‘Seventy, eighty per cent trust us blindly. The rest are critical, and that’s good, it keeps us sharp.’<\/p>\n

What was the most instructive mistake or setback of the past year?<\/h3>\n

Not a major outage or a lost client, but a character trait. ‘In a small organisation you very often think you know everything. In practice that turns out not to be the case, because IT is changing even faster, partly due to AI. Our most instructive mistake is that sometimes we shouldn’t be stubborn and should simply follow the advice.’ He immediately adds a caveat. ‘With AI we dived in head first and learned along the way what works and what doesn’t. With other things we’re hesitant because we don’t trust them, while the market has already fully implemented them.’<\/p>\n

Which technology or trend is keeping you busiest right now?<\/h3>\n

AI, says every MSP in this column. Here it’s in second place. ‘We had it as priority number one for a year. Now it’s incremental updates. Number one is the hybrid version of Azure Virtual Desktop, which is something completely new.’ For years, AVD was exclusively available to those who took a machine in Azure. ‘An Azure virtual machine is many times more expensive than the same machine in our data centre. Microsoft saw that MSPs with their own platform didn’t feel that pressure. Since last September the hybrid solution has been available for on-prem. Now we can link a client’s Entra ID to their virtual machine and set up SSO. Together with our clients, we’re working hard on migrating from the traditional setup to the more modern AVD solutions that make clients more future-proof.’<\/p>\n

AI, meanwhile, sits in a separate company, Nahayat.io, with largely the same team as Virtual Computing. Among other things, it sells Alex, its own AI helpdesk agent, to clients and other MSPs. ‘We don’t build software with AI for a client. We build the platform on which they can use AI safely, for example an agent they unleash on their own data, so that the data stays in the Netherlands and isn’t used for training.’<\/p>\n

How do you keep your people skilled and motivated in a tight labour market?<\/h3>\n

‘Everyone who has ever built an HTML page thinks they’re an IT professional. You can go through a recruiter, or you tackle it at the root: while they’re still studying.’ Virtual Computing is a Partner in Education of the ROC, the Dutch vocational college, in Tilburg and, since last year, also of Fontys. Mohammad gives guest lectures on topics that tie in with the curriculum and Virtual Computing. ‘You invest time and knowledge and you get a great deal back. Ninety per cent of our team, myself included, started at Virtual as an intern. You skip the entire onboarding period, because that person already knows your platform.’<\/p>\n

And keeping them on board? ‘A decent salary, let’s be honest. Everyone wants to be able to buy a house at some point.’ They try to keep things fun and sociable, with lunch together twice a week, an outing every quarter and an average age of 26 or 27. ‘Whether I’m CTO or Robin is CEO, they put me in my place if I do something wrong, and I do the same to them.’ Working from home is allowed, but hardly anyone does it. ‘When something urgent comes up, you walk into each other’s room, the two of you roll up your sleeves and get stuck in. That works better than calling on Teams first.’<\/p>\n

Where do you want your company to be in two years?<\/h3>\n

‘That we’ve completely modernised the online workspace, our core business, with that hybrid AVD. And growth as a company, not necessarily in FTEs. This year we’re an FD Gazelle for the fifth time (an annual award from the Financieele Dagblad for fast-growing companies \u2013 ed.), and in two years we’re hoping for the seventh.’ Above all, the variety in clients must remain. ‘Right now I’m at a webshop, yesterday I was at an energy supplier. If I had the same kind of clients and the same sales conversations every day, I’d be done with it very quickly.’<\/p>\n

What do you wish you’d known sooner as an MSP?<\/h3>\n

‘As an IT professional, much of your work consists of things that are invisible to your clients. As a result, they sometimes don’t realise what they’re paying for and quickly think they’re paying too much for services of which only the tip of the iceberg is visible.’ Mohammad calls it making it tangible. ‘I sell clouds. At the ROC speed dates I once put a 1U server on the table. Suddenly everyone came to have a look. And clients who want to, we take along to the data centre. Look, you’re running in one of these pizza boxes.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virtual Computing, MSP of the Month, focuses on personal client relationships and hybrid Azure Virtual Desktop. The MSP turns its interns into permanent staff for lasting client loyalty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mspb_bron_id":1169517,"mspb_url_nl":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/operatie-en-organisatie\/msp-van-de-maand-november-virtual-computing\/","mspb_url_de":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/de\/betrieb-und-organisation\/msp-des-monats-november-virtual-computing\/","mspb_url_en":"","mspb_beeld_url":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/hero-1793625707396.jpeg","mspb_beeld_klein":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/hero-1793625707396-400x225.jpeg","mspb_auteur":"Redactie","mspb_beeld_alt":"","mspb_video":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"Virtual Computing, November's MSP of the Month, focuses on personal client relationships and hybrid Azure Virtual Desktop for SMEs.","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"layout":[9],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-operations-and-organisation","layout-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110,"href":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"layout","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mspbusiness.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/layout?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}