Sean O’Connell, formerly director of EMEA marketing for Kaseya, has joined CentraStage as VP of global marketing. Moreover, O’Connell (pictured) is among the investors who recently pumped money into CentraStage, a cloud-based remote monitoring company in Europe. CentraStage says its customer base has more than doubled in the past 12 months, and the company is looking to accelerate business by integrating with PSA (professional services automation) software.

I think it’s safe to expect CentraStage to accelerate a U.S.-based push as well. The company in December 2010 indicated that it had roughly 15 employees, but was planning to double staff to roughly 30 employees by mid-2011. During that December 2010 interview with MSPmentor, CentraStage indicated that the company was profitable and hinted that some financial news would be forthcoming. I think O’Connell’s investment in CentraStage finally fulfills that news tip.

I think CentraStage will face an intensely competitive market here in the U.S., where more than a dozen different RMM (remote monitoring and management) platforms are vying for MSP attention. Plus, giants like Microsoft are finally waking up to the MSP opportunity.

Still, CentraStage’s apparent growth is impressive. In recent weeks, multiple MSP sources have told me that the European managed services market continues to be a bit more challenging than the MSP climate in North America and Australia.

I’ve been on the road the past few days, but I’m hoping to catch up with O’Connell to get first-hand perspectives on why he invested in CentraStage — and ultimately joined the company.

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