Kaseya Connect User Conference: Five Questions Worth Asking
The Kaseya Connect User Conference kicks off May 26 in Las Vegas. I plan to blog live from the event. If you have questions for Kaseya’s management team, customers and partners, feel free to email them to me (joe [at] ninelivesmediainc.com) or post comments below. In the meantime, here are five key questions I hope to have answered at the event.
1. Billion Dollar Opportunity?: Generally speaking, I believe most of the major MSP software providers generate annual revenues ranging from $10 million to $60 million. It’s difficult to really nail down revenue ranges since most of the software companies in this market are privately held. And publicly held MSP players such as Dell (Silverback) and Ingram Micro (Seismic) don’t break out their MSP-oriented revenues.
All that aside, some MSP software CEOs consider this industry to be a multi-billion dollar opportunity. Does Kaseya CEO Gerald Blackie still share that view? Just how big a market can managed services become, and how large a player will Kaseya be in the managed services ecosystem?
2. Global Footprint?: Kaseya and many of its rivals are pushing deeper into EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), Australia and Asia. Which regions are growing fastest? And are MSPs collaborating across continents?
3. Market Consolidation?: When Dell purchased Silverback in 2007, I assumed MSP software industry consolidation would accelerate through more mergers and acquisitions. Admittedly, major M&As have been slow to materialize. But Nimsoft CEO Gary Read told me in April 2009 that he increasingly hears from companies seeking to be acquired.
Are Kaseya and its partners hearing M&A buzz? If so, how might the industry consolidate?
4. Active Licenses?: During last year’s user conference, Kaseya CEO Gerald Blackie conceded that Kaseya’s installed base included thousands of licenses that MSPs had yet to use. More recently, I’ve heard from multiple industry sources who describe a potential shelfware problem in the industry.
Shelfware, as ComputerUser notes, is software that gets bought by a company or individual that ends up sitting on a shelf somewhere and not being used. Does the MSP industry have a shelfware problem? I’ll be looking for anwers.
5. Kaseya Software as a Service?: Generally speaking, Kaseya is a popular on-premise solution for MSPs, VARs and IT departments. But how is Kaseya building out its SaaS strategy? How will Kaseya evolve its licensing model for SaaS? And how will Kaseya potentially compete and cooperate with companies that already host Kaseya — such as VirtualAdministrator?
Lots of questions. I’ll push hard to find the answers at the conference. If you have additional questions you’d like me to pose, feel free to email me (joe [at] ninelivesmediainc.com) or post a comment.
MSPmentor is updated multiple times daily. Follow us via RSS, Facebook and Twitter. And subscribe to our enewsletter, webcasts and Resource Center.
Joe, I’d love to hear more from Kaseya in terms of realistic time-frames for moving into emerging technologies. Three years ago at this same conference, the buzz was all about mobile device management and that is still something we are waiting for. They are spending a huge amount of time and money expanding across six continents but their product is starting to fall dangerously behind.
Specific areas that I think Kaseya needs to invest in:
1. Mobile Device Management (WinMo, Blackberry, iPhone agents with Remote Control)
2. VM aware monitoring and management
3. Cloud based services monitoring (yes this is to compete with your post about Level’s new offering).
Jason: Great to hear from you. I promise to check out all three items during the event and report back
Joe,
i am very eager to hear answers to all the basic 5 questions that you said you are going to ask Kaseya. Almost all of my top questions matches with yours. We have been using Kaseya in our MSP service offerings,…and it has been great so far. but want to know more and who are the real competitors to kaseya and where are they going…with their offerings…Is Kaseya the real leader and is their feature/funtionalities real the best ? just want to know.
Additionally, networking gear like switches, routers, firewalls, etc… does not seem to work well or don’t work at all as they promise. so in this case what is their game plan – please ask that.
thanks for being a spokesperson for all others…
Ravi Sutrave
Hi Ravi: I will be sure to ask your additional question about network equipment support (switches, routers, firewalls, etc.). Thanks for taking the time to offer your perspective. Please keep us posted as you continue to build your own business.
Joe, since we’re mentioned by name in your article, I feel I should probably comment.
As you know, our 18-year old startup, NetworkDepot, was an early adopter of the MSP concept. We invested heavily in Kaseya and set about learning how to become a proper MSP. We had plenty of help, from very kind and innovative folks in the industry like Steve Bender and Troy Hickerson at InHouseIT, Kevin Carlson, Arnie Bellini and the folks at Connectwise, and, since getting involved in Kaseya, a host of people there including Gerald Blackie (our initial conversation was in the ratty basement of my home in Virginia) and since then, Max, Jeff, all the Robs and Kevins – it goes on.
Bottom line, we had plenty of help at somewhat the cutting edge of this industry. As we learned more, we had conversations with local VARs and passed some of these tools and concepts on. These conversations were a real eye opener to us. While we were fortunate to have the resources to invest in thousands of seats of Kaseya, and the loyal local customer base to sustain a good chunk of those licenses, the same wasn’t true for some of our VAR friends. Many were working out of their cars, and if not, were working as owner, tech, accountant, salesperson – you get the idea.
As you I am sure are aware from the readers of The VAR Guy, there are still a TON of small IT companies looking to make the transition to the world of MSP. There are also very large companies buying into it in a big way.
So while VirtualAdministrator may have started out as a way for people to get into the world of Kaseya easily until they could afford to transition to it directly, it’s now morphed into something of a mission. We’re consistently looking for ways to tilt the playing field a bit and ensure that the local IT companies are in position to compete and offer MANY services. They can’t do this if they need to commit in large number. So I think there will always be a market for people providing a way for VARs and startup MSPs to buy only what they’ve sold and once able to grow, invest in ownership of quantity levels of which tools will continue to be most important to them. So our ball game will be finding new ways to provide value as an MSP on-ramp that go beyond Kaseya.
The funny thing that people seem to miss sometimes when they talk about us and Kaseya is that our relationship is really quite symbiotic. Because we are an on-ramp, there’s naturally an off-ramp path. At some point our Hosted Kaseya clients will outgrow us, and when they do, there’s only one place for them to go. In the meantime, however, they’ve had the opportunity to talk with other members of our community, be trained on the use of the services we provide, coached on best business practices if they choose to engage us for that, and gain confidence and competency. This ultimately makes them a better customer for the vendor, whether that be Kaseya, SonicWALL, SpamSoap, Intronis or any other of our current and future vendor partners. Seriously, what better prospect is there for an MSP software company than someone that knows the product and has engineered it into their daily process?
Additionally, the fact that we’re one of only two companies in the US that have specific language in our contract with Kaseya to provide this kind of platform is really a testament to their intent to make sure that we continue flourish as an extention of the Kaseya team. This is backed up by their policing of others who don’t.
I don’t believe that Kaseya would ever do anything to severely damage what has been a very cordial and cooperative relationship for many years. While they may have to answer the “unit one” market by providing SaaS for those that simply want access to self-serve licensing as they need it, they will never be able to provide the kind of intense and fanatical support for the small or transitioning IT provider that we will because that’s who we target, and they, rightfully so, target everyone. Last time I heard, software companies were in the business of making money, so why shouldn’t Kaseya make every avenue available?
It’s going to be pretty simple, I think. If you know what you want and you just want to pay monthly for it, you’ll have choices. If you want the added benefit of additional services, training and coaching based on years of real world experience, you’ll look harder at us. And once you’ve established yourself as a converted MSP, you may take some or all of the services in house. And when you do, we’ll expect that you don’t forget to write.
Rich Forsen
VirtualAdministrator.com