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 Channel Futures

Business Models


GFI Max User Conference: Four Questions Worth Asking

  • Written by Joe Panettieri 1
  • November 8, 2011

GFI Max is hosting its first-ever U.S. customer conference this week (Orlando, Nov. 8-9). The customer conference, which certainly includes VARs and MSPs, offers an important inflection point for GFI and its partners. Indeed, parent GFI Software has acquired numerous companies, and the GFI Max portfolio now includes a range of remote management, security and storage solutions. Where do MSPs fit into the conversation? Here are four questions worth asking during the GFI Max gathering.

1. True Integration?: Check GFI Max’s solutions portfolio, and you’ll notice that the lineup for MSPs now includes:

  • asset tracking and inventory management
  • automated maintenance
  • email archiving
  • email security and continuity
  • frontline defense
  • managed antivirus
  • patch management
  • remote management and monitoring
  • cloud and website monitoring

That’s a pretty comprehensive bullet list of services. But some of the services involved GFI Software making acquisitions. Alistair Forbes, general manager of the GFI Max business unit, has previously told MSPmentor that the acquisitions have been seamlessly integrated into GFI Max’s software portfolio. (Though he concedes: The integrations take time.)

Each time a new acquisition is completed, GFI Max works to extend key capabilities like single sign-on and single dashboard management to the newly acquired platform. I realize some of that effort remains a work in progress. But how do MSPs rate GFI Max’s integration efforts so far? Frankly, MSPmentor has to do a better job checking in with the GFI Max community to get a feel for user feedback.

2. Big Audience?: And in recent weeks, Forbes has claimed that GFI Max is no longer a niche player in the managed services partner market. Without sharing specific deployment figures, Forbes seemed to be suggesting that GFI Max’s community of MSPs — and GFI Max’s installed base of managed end-points — now ranks among the largest in the world. We’re still poking around to try and get a feel for GFI Max’s installed base and growth rates.

3. Key Channel Leaders?: GFI Software CEO Walter Scott is outspoken and focused. He’s overseen an aggressive M&A strategy, including the recent buyout of Monitis, which develops cloud-based network and systems monitoring solutions. Meanwhile, Forbes has emerged as the point person on GFI Max, traveling the global to help engage MSPs on a range of fronts.

But we’ve also got to engage Andy Langsam, a veteran of ScriptLogic and Quest Software. Langsam joined GFI in June 2011 as executive VP of worldwide sales and operations. I believe he replaced Pat Hume, who joined GFI Max in February 2011 but left by August 2011 to join Convio as VP of worldwide sales.

So how is the partner program running under Langsam’s leadership? We need to check in with him.

4. Key Partners?: Autotask is the only third-party SaaS company listed as a partner on the GFI Max conference agenda. It looks like Autotask CEO Mark Cattini and Senior VP Len DiCostanzo are confirmed to speak at the GFI Max conference. I believe Cattini previously spoke at a similar GFI Max conference a few weeks ago in Europe.

The GFI Max conference is located a few miles up the road from the big IT Nation conference, hosted this week by ConnectWise. For the first time ever, the IT Nation event is open to non-ConnectWise partners. I’m curious to see if any MSPs running GFI Max and Autotask in tandem head over to the IT Nation event. I’ll be searching for more answers when I arrive at IT Nation on Nov. 9.

In the meantime, MSPmentor is reaching out to Alistair Forbes for his perspectives on the GFI MAX user conference, which is kicking off now.

Tags: Cloud Service Providers Digital Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs Business Models Cloud Data Centers RMM/PSA Technologies

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6 comments

  1. Avatar Doug November 11, 2011 @ 1:30 am
    Reply

    Umm. I would have to validate Alistair’s claims. I was at the conference in Orlando, and while sitting at a 4-person table at Universal Studios dinner venue in a casual amp; intimate setting, I asked one of the long-time MAX RMM staff members for an estimate on the number of partners. He shared a range. I will not repeat it here, as I consider it proprietary information. Let me say that it is bigger than I expected, and definitely large enough to give credibility to Alistair’s statement.

    I also asked another one of the MAX team how large the staff behind the development of MAX RMM is, and I actually felt embarrassed after sharing that I thought they only had 2-3 developers. It is a much larger team, effort amp; product than I realized.

    And we really like it!

    –
    Doug

  2. Avatar Joe Panettieri November 11, 2011 @ 3:09 am
    Reply

    Doug,

    Thanks for offering some perspectives from the GFI Max community/user base. We’ll keep on checking in with Alistair for trend updates.
    -jp

  3. Avatar Richard Tubb November 11, 2011 @ 10:59 am
    Reply

    Joe – I can’t speak for the US Conference, but there were over 100 MSP’s in attendance at the GFI Max UK Conference in Oxford a few weeks ago and out of the wide range of MSP’s I speak to at Community events here in the UK – GFI Max and Labtech are the RMM tools that most now use.

    Of course, those MSP’s that attend Community events are not necessarily indicative of the whole MSP market – but as they are typically some of the most savvy and engaged MSP’s around, it does give some indication that GFI Max RMM is no longer a niche player.

  4. Avatar Joe Panettieri November 13, 2011 @ 6:23 pm
    Reply

    Richard,

    Thanks for sharing some perspectives about the UK Conference. Did any big themes emerge during the event?
    -jp

  5. Avatar Richard Tubb December 1, 2011 @ 6:28 am
    Reply

    Joe – one of the top stories coming out of the UK Conference was the talk around GFI’s acquisition of Cloud Monitoring tool Monitis (www.monitis.com) and how it would be integrated into the GFI Max Dashboard in the near future.

    Interesting to observe that at the start of the day, most of the MSP attendees either hadn’t heard of Monitis or couldn’t see a role for it within their existing business, but by the end of the day – and after presentations from Monitis and existing Monitis MSP clients on how Monitis can be used – there was plenty of conversations going on between MSP’s about how Monitis fits in with the evolution of the MSP model for monitoring Cloud Services.

  6. Avatar Joe Panettieri December 1, 2011 @ 2:02 pm
    Reply

    Richard,

    I think you’ve reinforced an important MA deal that many people have overlooked. Let me know how you view the integration as it unfolds, if your time permits. Thanks.
    -jp

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