Kaseya Connect User Conference: Four Managed Services Trends

I’m heading to the 2009 Kaseya Connect User Conference on May 26. Now that I’ve had a chance to study the event agenda, here are the four key managed services trends I expect to explore at the event — plus a Google technology that I think Kaseya and its rivals will need to address over the long haul.

In case you missed it, here are the five questions I plan to ask Kaseya CEO Gerald Blackie and other members of the executive team during the conference, scheduled for May 26-28 in Las Vegas. Now, let’s flip the conversation to Kaseya’s own plans at the conference. Based on the event agenda, here are the four themes and trends I expect Kaseya and its conference sponsors to cover at the conference:

1. Managed Print Services: The grapevine says Xerox plans to have a prominent presence at the conference. The printer company and many of its rivals are pushing hard to grow the managed print services market. The evidence:

• Nearly 75 percent of MSPs are showing strong interest in manged services, according to an MSPmentor reader poll.
• A recent Managed Print Services conference in San Antonio, Texas (April 26-28, 2009) attracted MSPs and end-users. Now, Photizo Group is planning a similar MPS conference in Europe (Amsterdam, Netherlands, Oct. 21-23, 2009).
• Xerox and many of its rivals are now writing to open MSP application programming interfaces from Kaseya and other platform providers.

2. Managed Services for Corporate IT: Remember, this conference isn’t just for MSPs. Kaseya also services internal corporate IT departments. A year ago, Florida International University attended the Kaseya conference to learn more about MSP software. This year, the university is scheduled to present at the conference. So why did FIU deploy Kaseya’s software? And does the project involve any external MSPs?

3. The Mobile Masses: Kaseya CTO Paul Wong will discuss Kaseya’s Linux Agent and Mobile Agent (for the iPhone). I’ve noted multiple times the convergence of open source with managed services, including:

• Canonical developing a managed services platform of sorts, called Landscape, for Ubuntu Linux desktops and servers.
• Kaseya’s own channel partners have been writing code to manage Linux systems.

And yes, the iPhone also falls under a managed services umbrella — both as a device that manages networks as well as a device that must be managed. But I wonder: Is Kaseya also keeping an eye on Google Android? That mobile operating system seems to have come out of nowhere to land on as many as 2 million mobile devices, with deployments expected to grow 900 percent this year. I’ll check to see if Kaseya’s Wong has thoughts on Android.

4. Mark’s Big News?: Ok, I’ll bite: Kaseya President Mark Sutherland is expected make a “Surprise Announcement” on May 28, according to this teaser video from Kaseya Senior Product Marketing Manager Chad Gniffke:

[youtube width=”350″ height=”280″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szxLreU85Ks&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Sutherland’s session will  focus on such topics as Kaseya 6 and Peer2Peer Connectivity. Other than on the event agenda, I don’t see any mentions of Kaseya P2P Connectivity anywhere on the web.

I’m always wary when a vendor promises “big news.” Will the news really be big? In this case, keep your eyes on Sutherland: Kaseya generally saves its larger company announcements for the annual user conference. And the company has been working on several major initiatives — including 24×7 follow-the-Sun help desk support, SaaS and other offerings — in recent months. Stay tuned. We’ll be blogging live throughout the conference.

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