Zenith Infotech Preps SmartStyle Cloud Solution
This blog entry has been a work in progress for about a year. Most Zenith Infotech partners have heard of the company’s SmartStyle cloud and virtualization strategy. But what’s the status of SmartStyle, and what are the potential benefits to VARs and MSPs? Here are some details, which emerged at the Autotask Community Live conference earlier today in Miami.
During a meeting with multiple Zenith Infotech representatives, the company indicated SmartStyle has reached the pre-release candidate stage. SmartStyle will shift to limited production around June 2010 with full production around July 2010, according to Maurice Saluan, VP of channel management at Zenith Infotech.
Initially, SmartStyle will involve an on-premise appliance that allows MSPs to virtualize end-customers’ server and desktop environments. But over time, SmartStyle will eventually replicate customer environments into an MSP’s cloud, or into a forthcoming Zenith Infotech cloud. Zenith has made two data center investments in North America to bolster the cloud strategy.
SmartStyle’s pricing has yet to be officially announced but here’s a general feel for how Zenith Infotech thought process so far. Generally speaking, it sounds like SmartStyle will cost about $100 to $120 per month for a 10-user network, or about $180 per month for a 15-user network. It sounds like Zenith Infotech is trying to leave room for VARs and MSPs to mark up the service by about 50 percent.
Zenith InfoTech expects VARs and MSPs to pitch SmartStyle to customers that (A) require server upgrades and/or are (B) want to transition from aging Windows XP and Windows Vista environments. Those types of inflection points, Saluan said, represent ideal opportunities for channel partners to transition customers to (A) virtualized environments over the near term and (B) cloud environments over the long haul.
Reality Check
Still, we’ve all heard about numerous MSP-centric cloud platforms. From SmartStyle to Kaseya’s K2, there are plenty of promising cloud platforms for solutions providers.
But which options will really deliver the goods for VARs and MSPs? Saluan sounds confident that SmartStyle will hit its stride with channel partners this summer. We’ll be watching to see if he’s right.
Sign up for MSPmentor’s weekly Enewsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. And follow us via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; and Twitter. Plus, check out more MSP voices at www.MSPtweet.com.
It’d be nice, Joe, if Zenith could be bothered to return sales calls.
Bobby: Thanks for taking the time to post a comment. Are you an existing partner or potential partner? A rival?
I’ve certainly heard some complaints from a few MSPs who were upset by SmartStyle delays. But please let me know… What issues have you specifically experienced?
-jp
Zenith definitely is more of a “sign and fax your app first and we will assign a rep to you after” company but I one of the reps has told me he gets about 50 inquiries per day. It is probably hard for them to tell the tire kickers from serious partners.
You gotta love these prices though! The only snafu seems to be the upstream band at smaller companies can’t handle the daily changes.
Andy Myers
http://www.andymyers.net
Joe, one small comment here. Dont mean to disparage competitors, but Kaseya K2 is Kaseya’s remote monitoring software hosted in their cloud. Smartstyle is a full infrastructure offering for MSPs to provide a private or public cloud to their customers. In short this enables MSPs to sell the complete IT infrastructure the client needs as a branded monthly service as compared to just managing their existing infrastructure. To create something like Smartstyle today you would need to buy a product like VMWare vSphere Essentials Plus, a SAN, servers, thin clients, a backup system and monitoring from probably 7-8 different vendors and most likely it will cost an MSP 5-8 times what the pricing for Smartstyle is.
Andy: Thanks for sharing your perspectives.
Akash: Thanks for explaining SmartStyle a bit more. Curious to see how MSPs potentially take SmartStyle and Vu Telepresence to market. As you know, I was always impressed with LifeSize Communications’ low-cost telepresence. We’ll be watching to see if you can disrupt LifeSize and the bigger players.
-jp
Joe,
You might want to look into this further. Zenith has been promising DCIRBoxOfficeSmartStyle for 2 years now. The product promised has changed many times since the original announcement. Many MSPs invested alot of time and money, received trained, evaluated demo units, and developed go to market strategies. Then Zenith, without notice, changed it all up again. They’ve simply failed to deliver, they’ve failed to communicate and many MSPs no longer trust them.
Anonymous: Thanks for taking the time to post a comment.
I do realize that Zenith has talked off and on about SmartStyle for about 18 months. And it sounds like the strategy now involves on-premises virtualization appliances (to start) with broader cloud to follow. I have heard privately from a few MSPs that grew frustrated with SmartStyle delays and looked for alternatives. But I’ve also heard from several that are pushing ahead and plan to bet on SmartStyle.
One of my challenges: Getting MSPs to go on the record with their thoughts… I understand the need for MSPs to post anonymous comments (from time to time) but MSPmentor pushes hard for readers to disclose their names and company affiliations, so that all readers can make more informed decisions.
In this case, I think you have a point — SmartStyle delays have frustrated some MSPs. But on the other hand, I can’t confirm whether you’re a Zenith partner or rival… so it’s difficult for me to draw conclusions from your comment.
-jp
In Zenith’s defense major changes in the market (namely Citrix Consolidating several products into XD4) have caused Zenith to “delay and evolve”. I think they have also put extra effort into the unexpected success of their BDR.
I don’t know of ANY offering that will match these features and deployment options that would scale low enough for a 10 to 20 user deployment and stay under $50k. There are plenty of cheap desktop virtualization solutions but they dont offer any of the features Zenith is promising.
I agree it would serve the community well for Anonymous to step out of the shadows.
Andy Myers
http://www.andymyers.net
Andy: If/when you give SmartStyle a try please send me some updated thoughts.
-jp
joe [at] NineLivesMediaInc.com
We’re trying out our first Zenith Smartstyle …
Lets just say if you expect to set this thing up and spin up VM’s like cake… your kidding yourself.
Rob,
Keep me posted. Let us know how it goes. We’ll always push to cover the pros and cons of technologies in a responsible manner.
-jp