ConnectWise Promotes Partner Collaboration at Kaseya User Conference
At the Kaseya User Conference in Las Vegas, ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini warned attendees not to trust Dell in the managed services market, and invited MSPs to partner online and outsource to each other, using ConnectWise’s network.
The Dell references aside, Bellini and rival platform providers (Autotask and Kaseya, for instance) each are working overtime to ensure their platforms can promote partner collaboration.
Autotask CEO Bob Godgart hinted to me in March 2008 that the Autotask platform will allow partners to route trouble tickets and project management items to each other. Likewise, Kaseya executives at the conference are talking about forthcoming partner collaboration tools.
In some ways, the moves counter OnForce — the online market place where IT service providers outsource projects to one another, based on IT specialties, geographic coverage and a bidding system that resembles eBay.
But while OnForce is an any-to-any marketplace for VARs that sign up for the service, MSP platform providers are building collaboration systems within their own online communities. Buy a business process automation platform from ConnectWise, for instance, and you can suddenly connect with other ConnectWise partners within the online community.
Ultimately, Bellini says, collaboration will unify MSPs and empower them to fend off Dell and other vendors that move into the MSP space. “Do we care if Dell is jumping in? Yes we do, but don’t worry about it,” said Bellini. “That’s my message to MSPs. Pick your specialty and dominate.” And outsource work to other partners, he added.
In Dell’s defense, the company has worked overtime in recent months to communicate with MSPs. Also, Dell has launched a channel blog to interact more closely with VARs.
We can’t speak for anyone else, but at Autotask Corporation, our philosophy is that the IT services ecosystem is too small and fragile to start creating factions. It’s not about creating separate proprietary platforms and forcing solution providers to choose among them, the vendors that make them, or colleagues that use them.
Our strategy is to create integrations and linkages that gives solution providers the freedom to use whatever platform, whatever products, whatever partners they chose, and have them all work seamlessly together.
Rather than create a proprietary ticket sharing system that limits our nearly 20,000 users to working only with each other… our approach is to give our users a universal Outsourcing Portal that allows them to collaborate with literally anyone.
With our new Outsourcing tool, scheduled for release in the next 30 days, our customers can share tickets with any other solution provider, whether they use Autotask, ConnectWise, or any other PSA platform. More over, they can exchange work orders directly between each other, or directly into OnForce, IMOnsite, or any other services network.
Dell is not the enemy. They’re vendor with a channel that also happens to sell direct, like a lot of other vendors. In fact, we are working closely Dell as we speak to build an even tighter integration with their own managed services tools.
If you are worried about competing with Dell, you are nothing more than a commodity, and might as well pack it in now. The MSPs who will survive and win are the ones who: (1) know how to build long-lasting relationships with their customers, (2) get paid for being their trusted technology advisors (3) have the tools to partner with a broad spectrum of other professionals to deliver whatever their clients needs.