AVG Technologies (AVG) announced new features for its Managed WorkPlace 9.0 remote monitoring and management (RMM) software, a new partnership with Centrify designed to beef up security, and the results of a new survey about partner attitudes on the Internet of Things (IOT) during the company’s AVG Cloud Partner Summit in Phoenix this week.

MSPmentor was on the scene and has the details of these and other announcements.

AVG updates Managed Workplace

AVG will update its Managed Workplace 9.0 RMM platform by the end of this year, according to Mike Foreman, AVG’s general manager of small and medium-sized business (SMB).

Foreman told MSPmentor that updates to the platform will include improved patch management, increased automation and new alerting and reporting capabilities.

Identity management partnership

In other news at the event, AVG announced a partnership with identity management software provider Centrify to deliver identity-as-a-service (IDaaS) to MSP partners. The deal is intended to help MSPs better manage their customers’ data.

“The idea was to find a way to control the data and bring it back into the partner’s hands,” Foreman said. “This is a way to provide multi-factor authentication to log into AVG services. We’re really securing our interface into our cloud systems, and then we’re going to provide that to our partners.”

The partnership will enable AVG’s MSP partners to use Active Directory to manage to multi-factor authentication, secure sign-on, mobile device management and mobile application management.

The integration of Centrify’s IDaaS capability with AVG’s existing remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform will provide a single, secure access layer to all of AVG’s cloud services plus more than 2,500 popular cloud-based business apps for partners and their business customers, according to AVG

An exclusive preview of the Centrify IDaaS solution is available to resellers and MSPs attending the Cloud Partner Summit.

Two-thirds of MSPs believe IoT will boost their revenues

A new AVG Internet of Things (IoT) study of 1,770 IT and marketing decision makers revealed the majority of MSPs said they believe the IoT can help them increase their revenues.

AVG’s study results revealed the following findings:

“Everyone talks about the Internet of Things a lot. Businesses need their own devices and need multiple apps, but the issue is how to manage all of them. Regardless of customer size, customer data is important. If you embrace [the IoT], you are going need a partner with a security pedigree to embrace that,” said Joanna Brace, AVG’s vice president of marketing and product marketing for SMB.

MSPmentor will be at the AVG conference for the next few days, and day two of the event promises to be a busy one, too.  AVG CEO Gary Kovacs and technology guru Guy Kawasaki are on the agenda, and we’ll be bringing you the coverage.

Check out MSPmentor for updates throughout the summit.

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