Autotask Community Live: Monday, April 19 Recap
The main content sessions kicked off today at the Autotask Community Live conference in Miami, where roughly 500 VARs and managed services providers are sharing best practices. Here are nine pieces of news and chatter heard during the conference today.
1. Building Community, Part I: Autotask expects to have at least eight regional user groups in North America by the end of 2010, with informal groups also expected to pop up in Europe and Australia, according to Mark Crall, executive director of community and business development.
2. Building Community, Part II: For larger solutions providers, Autotask is helping to organize a so-called VARs at Large Group. The group will include roughly 12 companies, each of which has at least 50 employees, according to Crall.
3. Safety in Numbers: Quite a few companies specializing in anti-spam and email protection technologies are here. Key players include ExchangeDefender, Spam Soap and Reflexion. If there are additional security and spam protection companies in the house please let me know.
4. Gone But Not Forgotten: Eric Webster, former channel chief at Intronis, the online backup company, didn’t make it to the event. Apparently, Webster is about to join another high-tech firm. Intronis didn’t make it to Autotask Community Live, but sources say Intronis remains fully committed to growing its base of white label VARs and MSPs. Neither Intronis nor Webster have been available for comment about Webster’s alleged career move.
5. Elbow Room?: Most of the well-known RMM players are here… itControl Solutions, Kaseya, Level Platforms, N-able and Zenith Infotech, just to name a few. Still, Kaseya seems pretty quiet here. And quite a few MSPs met for a private lunch today to discuss whether to embrace Kaseya 2 — a new platform that apparently has hit a few bumps with early adopters. Some of the attendees appear apprehensive about the upgrade.
Meanwhile, a few attendees allege that Autotask declined to allow LabTech Software — a recent ConnectWise Capital investment — to sponsor the event. I haven’t asked Autotask and ConnectWise for an official comment… but I think I already know the answer before I even ask the question.
No doubt, the ConnectWise vs. Autotask competition remains fierce… but the old PSA wars are changing quite a bit. Autotask is talking up product sourcing (via VARStreet) at the conference. Meanwhile, ConnectWise is out on the road at Los Angeles and Seattle user group meetings, according to the ConnectWise Twitter feed.
6. Hardware At Your Service?: Jay McBain, director of SMB for Lenovo, is networking (as usual) here at the conference. I could be wrong but I think Dell and Hewlett-Packard aren’t here. Big Mistake. I’m not sure why many PC suppliers continue to miss MSP-centric events.
7. Two More Opportunities?: Zenith Infotech is talking up its SmartStyle cloud and virtualization efforts, and Vu Telepresence offerings. Assuming they work as advertised, SmartStyle and Vu represent potential hardware as a service (HaaS) opportunities for VARs and MSPs.
8. No Revolution Needed?: Keep an eye on MSPevolution.com, from Alpheon CEO Greg Donovan. I expect more details Tuesday.
9. What’s Next?: That’s it for Monday, April 19. We’ll be back April 20 with more coverage from Autotask Community Live, before heading on to the Ingram Micro VTN conference in Hollywood, Fla.
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LabTech applied to attend the show last minute and after the announcement of the ConnectWise Capital investment. Because the AutoTask show was so close to the announcement, they believed we would be a distraction to the show agenda.
I was disappointed that we were unable to attend because I wanted to reinforce that LabTech stands strongly behind the interface WE wrote to integrate with AutoTask. I also wanted to reinforce to our partners that Autotask was behind the interface. Maybe next year they will be willing to allow us to attend the Community Live event.
Despite the fact they declined our application, AutoTask offer support for the interface by stating they would do the following:
1. AutoTask will promote and host joint webinars with LabTech to demonstrate the interface
2. The CEO of AutoTask stated he would happily join a call with a LabTech prospect and AutoTask partner that has doubts about the commintement to the interface.
I remain committed to the AutoTask interface and we have MANY partners that enjoy using it.
Regards,
Matt
Matt: Thanks for always adding additional insights for our readers. I’m still in the road and I know I owe you a call. Thanks again for taking the time to jump into the conversation here.
-jp
JP,
I spoke with the CEO of Intronis, Sam Gutmann today about Eric’s departure. In a nutshell, Sam informed me that they are saddened by Eric leaving and they wish him well. Intronis just came off their best quarter ever and are moving forward. They will be sponsoring and taking part in many channel events this year.
It is due to a number of phone calls and emails that I have received from my partners, I will be detailing my conversation with Sam in my blog tomorrow afternoon.
Stu
Stu: Thanks for the update. It was good to see you at Autotask Community Live. I look forward to your blog. Gutmann also went on the record April 20 about Intronis and Webster in this interview.
Side note: You shared a key industry contact with me during the conference, Stu. I really appreciate the connection and thank you for it. Great conversation.
Readers: You can track Stu at http://www.StuartSelbst.com.
-jp