IT systems management and automation platform provider Kaseya has announced that it has acquired 365 Command, a cloud application management tool for monitoring and managing Microsoft Office 365, the online version of the Microsoft’s (MSFT) productivity suite. Kaseya’s acquisition of the tool pushes the company deeper into the cloud tools and management arena. Here are the details.

First, some background. 365 Command was created by MessageOps (a Talkin’ Cloud Top 100 Cloud Services Provider) and provides features a full range of management and monitoring features for Microsoft Office 365 including password resets, access controls, mobile device access monitoring, license management, and full reporting on the full range of monitoring and management features.

“Office 365 is exploding in popularity. With this growth, mid-market organizations and MSPs are scrambling for a better and more efficient way to manage these applications,” said Yogesh Gupta, president and CEO of Kaseya, in a statement. “This acquisition gives Kaseya yet another powerful tool in its arsenal to help our customers dramatically simplify management of their IT environments, and to make managing today’s modern infrastructure and applications seamless for organizations.”

365 Command’s features complement Kaseya’s IT automation and management offerings, used by many MSPs as the backbone platform of their businesses. And its not Kaseya’s first such acquisition this year. Here’s a timeline of Kaseya’s year so far in terms of acquisitions for feature enhancements:

That’s a lot for a company to digest over a period of less than six months. The addition of the 365 Command tool may prove to be the most visible addition to Kaseya’s portfolio because Microsoft Office’s defacto status as the standard office suite for business, at least for the on-premise version. 

And while many MSPs have been irked by Microsoft’s less-than-channel-friendly debut of Microsoft Office 365, those I’ve spoken with would prefer to work with Microsoft’s cloud applications rather than alternatives. And since Microsoft has introduced Office 365 Open, billed as a friendlier option for MSPs and cloud service providers, more partners may have jumped in.

That sets the stage for a strong potential market for 365 Command. MessageOps has billed the tool as a replacement for using the command-line PowerShell to manage Office 365.

365 Command first launched in February this year (although Talkin’ Cloud previewed it in January) and was managing more than 850,000 mailboxes for nearly 2,000 companies worldwide as of last month when Tech Data announced a deal to offer the tool to its MessageOps partners.