Autotask, CentraStage Partner Up on Managed Services

There’s a growing relationship between Autotask and CentraStage, a UK-based provider of remote monitoring software in the cloud. The partnership could allow Autotask to accelerate its PSA (professional services automation) business in Europe, while assisting CentraStage’s potential RMM growth in North America. For starters, CentraStage’s cloud-based software now integrates with Autotask, and CentraStage ComStore — a new online marketplace — will now promote Autotask to site visitors. It’s safe to expect more details about the Autotask-CentraStage integrations during the Autotask Community Live conference in May. Here are some preliminary details in the meantime.

CentraStage quietly built a SaaS following among European MSPs in 2010. By March 2011, former Kaseya veteran Sean O’Connell invested in CentraStage and joined the company… a precursor to CentraStage launching a SaaS platform on U.S. soil sometime in 2011.

Meanwhile, new Autotask CEO Mark Cattini visited the U.K. a week or so ago. I believe he was in Europe to hire UK talent… but perhaps he stopped by CentraStage to discuss the potential Autotask-CentraStage relationship and hammer out some details.

Current Moves

Fast forward to the present: CentraStage and Autotask say a “key component of the partnership is a new seamless integration between the two products designed to dramatically improve IT service delivery and workflow. The new integration includes automatic ticket creation from monitor alerts, asset synchronisation and full round trip ticket closure in both systems.”

Moreover, Autotask will become the first software vendor to make its products available through CentraStage ComStore, CentraStage’s new online marketplace available exclusively to its customers, the companies say.

Also, CentraStage and Autotask Corporation plan to exhibit their products at this week’s Service Desk and IT Support Show in London. In addition, CentraStage is sponsoring the 2011 Autotask Community Live! Worldwide Customer Conference in the US in Miami, Florida on May 22-24, 2011, the companies say.

I’ve asked CentraStage if the company plans to pursue similar partnership engagements with ConnectWise and Tigerpaw Software (Autotask’s chief rivals in the PSA, professional services automation, market).

CentraStage’s O’Connell replied:

“Sure, both are on the near-term roadmap. We choose Autotask first as we felt they more closely aligned with our target prospect and current customers. We have just put V1.0 of our ComStore live as a beta in the last week and this allows us to very quickly and easily build and drop in components outside of dev cycles and eventually have ISVs build their own components and connectors.”

No doubt, MSPs demand integrations between PSA and RMM (remote monitoring and management) software. Just last week, ConnectWise and Kaseya — which potentially compete on some selected fronts — announced a new integration.

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