Kaseya Names Bob Davis Chief Marketing Officer

Bob Davis, a seasoned channel executive and well-known entrepreneur, has joined Kaseya as chief marketing officer, MSPmentor has confirmed. Davis, who has held executive-level posts at CA Technologies and Novell, joined Kaseya about two months ago, according to Kaseya CEO Gerald Blackie. Here’s a bit more about the move.

I first met Davis roughly two decades ago, when he was senior VP and GM at Novell (1986-1994). Davis was one of the key people who had helped Novell to emerge as the leading PC LAN software provider. Since that time, Davis has held key executive and entrepreneurial posts at multiple companies including:

• VP of marketing and Business Development, Iterated Systems
• VP of Marketing and Business Development, CyberMedia
• CEO, Netreon
• Senior VP and GM, CA Technologies
• CEO Sentilla

I haven’t spoken with Davis yet about his move to Kaseya. But I can offer some educated guesses about his mission at the company.

On the enterprise front, I suspect Davis will position Kaseya as an IT systems management company that allows businesses to more closely align IT with business and financial metrics. On the solutions provider side of the house, I suspect Davis will try to more clearly communicate Kaseya’s SaaS and on-premises software strategy.

Opportunities… And Challenges

No doubt, Kaseya has been in growth mode … marching toward the $100 million annual revenue mark, according to a May 2010 prediction from Blackie. But 2010 was also a year of challenges for Kaseya. The company’s so-called K2 platform hit some delivery delays in late 2009 and rollout bumps in 2010. Some of the problems involved partners failing to properly upgrade their hardware for the resource-hungry K2 upgrade. Also, Kaseya’s SaaS strategy hit some bumps and delays as Kaseya sorted out its pricing and product models. And finally, Kaseya faced competition from entrenched rivals as well as upstarts — particularly Labtech Software, an RMM (remote monitoring and management) software provider backed by ConnectWise Capital.

Still, most of the MSPs completing our fourth-annual MSPmentor 100 survey run Kaseya’s software in one form or another. (Complete survey results will arrive in February 2011.). We’re checking in with Davis to learn more about his marketing priorities for Kaseya.

Bigger Picture

Meanwhile, Davis joins Kaseya amid multiple executive moves within the managed services market. Some recent noteworthy changes include:

• Autotask naming Mark Cattini CEO, founder Bob Godgart shifting to Chief Visionary Officer, and Lenovo channel veteran Jay McBain joining as senior VP.
• N-able recently promoted its COO into the president post.
• Intronis recently named a new CEO to lead the online backup company.

MSPmentor is tracking additional executive moves as MSP software companies prepare for 2011.

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