Greenwood-Based Business Keeps Customers “Connected”
A little over forty years ago, Micro-SPED, Inc., or Microcomputers for Special Education, was born when Dennis Moss asked his brother, Randy Moss, for help on a project.
Randy Moss had just been hired on as the first computer programming teacher at Greenwood High School, his and his brother’s alma mater, after studying computer science at Moorhead and Mississippi State.
“It was the first programming class they offered,” says Moss. “I was the first one to teach it, and I did it for two years. It was teaching basic programming on Apple computers.”
At the time, Dennis was also working at the school, but as a psychologist in the special education department.
“My brother was testing kids, which is something all the schools have to do for special education, or gifted kids,” says Moss. “The reports he had to write were just very lengthy, so he got with me to see if I could write a program that would speed that process up.”
When they first started the business, Moss says all they did was write software for special education.
“Our software was in every school district in the state of Mississippi, then we spread out into Texas and Missouri,” says Moss. “We did that for years. We had to update the test every year, I actually taught my brother how to update the tests themselves on the software, so he ran that part of the business.”
As the business grew, Moss realized there was a demand for people who knew how to do computer repair work.
“So, we branched off into computer repair, and then we became one of the first Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Greenwood back in the 90s,” says Moss.
When AT&T and AOL “got into the game,” Moss says they decided to forego the competition and they sold that part of their business to a company out of Louisiana.
“Then, we just went straight into networking, and now we have become an MSP, or a Managed Service Provider,” says Moss. “In other words, we manage people’s networks.”
One of the biggest challenges in this business is how fast the technology changes. Over the years, Moss says he has had to go to more trainings and had to get more certifications than can be listed.
“I could teach certifications that I had to get years ago, but no longer exist,” says Moss. “Back then, I had to go off to school in Atlanta or Florida and take tests, but we can do most of that online now.”
About ten years ago, the brothers decided to stop developing special education software, but they couldn’t part with their well known name. “I’m running the company now,” says Moss. “My brother retired last year, but he still owns half the business.”
Today, the business has grown to include ten employees and six technicians.
“We have to constantly get re-certified,” says Moss. “And when I say re-certified, I mean take courses, especially with cybersecurity. And, of course, we had to become Microsoft authorized.”
Today, eighty percent of their business is cybersecurity service contracts. “We also do a lot with computer sales and service, but the sales we do are mainly servers or workstations for offices,” says Moss. “We resell a lot of different hardware devices that we have become authorized to work on.
They offer Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell, and Lenovo personal computer and server hardware, as well as SonicWall and Fortinet, which are leading cybersecurity firms that offer cybersecurity software.
“We install the cybersecurity software necessary to protect people’s networks, and we do cyber training software for customers,” says Moss. “About ten years ago, we also become a reseller for Microsoft Cloud Services, or Outlook 365, which includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams—the whole nine yards.”
According to Moss, most of their current contract services are for clients that have a good number of computers.
“Now we’re really getting into the artificial intelligence part of it,” says Moss. “The security software that we use is called CrowdStrike, which is an AI based software that we put on workstations. It learns what that user does every day, and when it sees something that’s out of whack, it’ll shut it down.”
As far as access, Moss says the client has control of what the technicians can and can’t see on their end.
“What we’re monitoring is the alerts that are coming from the cybersecurity software that we have on your computers,” says Moss. “We’re monitoring for outside attacks coming through your firewall. We make sure backups are running, and we do test restores on their data in case they are ever hacked.”
Another obstacle Moss mentioned was finding, hiring, and keeping technicians. While he says he doesn’t mind having to teach a new hire, finding local technicians who already have the programming background is almost impossible.
“What I like to see is someone who’s willing to learn and has a little bit of experience in front of a computer,” says Moss. “The technicians I have now, most of them we trained ourselves. I’ve got some that have been here over fifteen to twenty years.”
Moss says his role today is mainly managing the technicians, and scheduling the work that needs to be done. While he would prefer to be programing or writing code most days, he says he has learned the hard way that someone has to be managing the quality of the work being done. So, he has begrudgingly stepped into that role over the years.
“I can still do some of the technical work, but mostly I have an office manager now that we hired last year, Ritchie Fulgham, and he keeps up with and manages the office.”
Because many of the businesses they currently have contracts with have additional branches, Moss says they service computers all over the state as well as a few in the surrounding states.
“The core of our business is in the Greenwood area,” says Moss. “But, we can go out pretty far if it’s needed.”
In the future, they are considering opening up an additional location, or base of operations, to better serve their customers across the state. Moss says he does not want to grow the business too fast, because the quality of the work is too important to him.
“Years ago, we got to a point where we turned down customers because we just didn’t have the personnel to support them,” says Moss. “I’m not going to take on somebody I can’t support.”
Although there isn’t much competition in the cybersecurity field throughout the delta, Moss says there are few other computer service providers that do what they do. He truly believes the work he is doing now is valuable and a much needed service for the community.
“Basically what we do is monitor your network 24-7,” says Moss. “If you’ve got a company and you’ve got two or three computers, you need to have somebody managing them for security or you’re going to get hacked. It’s just not an if, it’s when.”
He cautions everyone to consider investing in their computer security.
“You need somebody looking over everything,” says Moss. “Even if it’s not us, it needs to be somebody.”
If you would like to learn more about MicroSPED, you can follow them on Facebook or visit them anytime Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at their current base of operations, which is 400 East Washington Street in Greenwood.