(Pictured above: NerdioCon kicks off in Cancún with a welcome party Monday night.)

NERDIOCON, CANCÚN — Nerdio, as a kickoff to its first in-person NerdioCon in Cancún, just came out with a new full integration with Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM). The integration will allow all physical devices and virtual desktops to be managed via Nerdio Manager for MSP.

Nerdio’s Joseph Landes

“We’re seeing more and more needs within our MSP audience to manage lots of different types of endpoint devices,” Joseph Landes, chief revenue officer, Nerdio, told Channel Futures. “This is especially with everyone working remotely — being the single platform and the single UI.” 

Integrating with Microsoft Endpoint Manager

Nerdio Manager adds value on top of the capabilities that Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 have. It is an Azure management platform that allows admins to seamlessly provision and manage deployments of both Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 side by side.

When the initial integration with MEM is complete, it will allow service providers to do the following in Nerdio Manager for MSP: 

Modernizing Endpoint Management

Nerdio’s Vadim Vladimirskiy

“Through this new integration, Nerdio Manager is evolving to enable organizations to more easily adopt cloud-first technologies while consolidating and modernizing endpoint management,” said Vadim Vladimirskiy, CEO and co-founder, Nerdio. “Being able to manage physical devices alongside virtual desktops via the same platform will help managed service providers better serve the needs of the businesses and workers they support.” 

Microsoft has been investing significantly in MEM, but it’s not yet very popular with MSPs. Many use Microsoft 365, and a specific product within that suite is Microsoft 365 Business Premium. This is primarily what small businesses use. One of the components within that suite is an endpoint management piece. This piece includes device compliance. It also validates that the local device has all of the necessary prerequisites to connect into the rest of the cloud and get access to the data. 

“The problem is that this component isn’t really used that much,” Vladimirskiy told Channel Futures. “I think the tooling that Microsoft created is really more targeted to enterprise. And it’s not very MSP friendly; it’s another portal they have to learn. So we are trying to bridge that gap. We are trying to take those capabilities that are already in the product, and the licensing that most customers already own, and provide MSPs the tools to actually use it in a productive way. And Microsoft is ideally positioned because they own the operating system and the cloud service. So the integration is super tight and it’s just as difficult to manage. That’s where we fit in — to try to make that super simple.”

Other NerdioCon Announcements

Vladimirskiy made the announcement during his opening keynote presentation at NerdioCon 2022 here in Cancún. He also shared that Nerdio has reached 2 million users under management across its product portfolio. 

“We continue to be impressed by Nerdio’s grasp on evolving IT needs and the future of virtual desktop, application and endpoint management,” said Scott Manchester, director of program management for Windows 365, Microsoft. 

Nerdio also detailed plans for the 2022 Nerdio Manager for MSP product road map. Updates and features coming this spring are plentiful. The first includes full support for new Windows 365 Business API. The ability to manage already installed apps on multi-session AVD desktops leveraging FSLogix App Masking technology will also get an update. Updates to Nerdio’s free Cost Estimator tool to reflect Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience changes will be effective in March. 

The company will also implement training and resource initiatives to help MSP partners kick up their Azure practices. This includes facilitating partner-to-partner engagement by certifying MSPs and freelance IT talent. This aims to help other partners with tasks that require specialized skills with Azure and Nerdio technology.