Nimsoft Prepares SaaS Pitch for CAWorld
When CAWorld kicks off May 16 in Las Vegas, Nimsoft Founder Gary Read will be on hand to make a SaaS pitch to enterprise IT managers and MSPs. Read’s goal: Setting up and demonstrating a SaaS-based managed services system in 30 minutes or less. For CA and Nimsoft alike, the conference represents a critical inflection point. Here’s why.
For many reasons, CA remains a company in transition. The IT management specialist has been buying up small software companies in recent months. The goal: Penetrate markets that CA hasn’t been able to target on its own. That’s why CA acquired Nimsoft in March 2010 for $350 million — or roughly 10 times revenues.
Shortly after the deal, Nimsoft expanded beyond its on-premises heritage and launched Nimsoft On Demand — a SaaS platform for so-called emerging enterprises and MSPs. Nimsoft has publicly stated that its SaaS platform matches the power of its on-premises alternative.
Now, Nimsoft Founder Gary Read is preparing to share a bit more details during the CAWorld conference. In his personal blog, Read says:
“We are hoping to demonstrate in real time the entire process of going from zero to having a monitored environment in 30 minutes or less (still working on logistical issues though). I told the team that anything less than Steve Jobs/iPad impact would be failure….LOL, maybe I set the bar a little high.”
On the one hand, SaaS-centric MSP platforms are nothing new. But on the other hand, Read has the rare opportunity to demonstrate Nimsoft’s platform in front of thousands of CAWorld attendees. Those attendees, in turn, will ultimately determine if CA made a wise investment in Nimsoft.
Sign up for MSPmentor’s weekly Enewsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. And follow us via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; and Twitter. Plus, check out more MSP voices at www.MSPtweet.com.
CA’s inability to target specific SME accounts is a function of scale. They are so big and their software licensing so complex, all but the largest enterprise customers have the resources and pocketbook to afford them. For example, compare CA Unicenter to any standard MSP network management platform in terms of price, feature and function. I rest my case. 🙂
Scott: Thanks for taking the time to comment. I think the issue is more than scale. To expand upon your example…
1. CA Unicenter was designed for enterprises, so CA was never really motivated to offer simplified pricing to MSPs that target SMBs.
2. However, ARCserve (backup and restore) was designed and priced for VARs to sell into SMBs. During the 1990s, ARCserve suffered a sales slowdown after CA acquired Cheyenne Software (ARCserve’s developer). So, for quite some time CA had a fundamentally flawed approach to the SMB market, regardless of the software’s intended market target.
Has current CA management addressed those flaws? Can Nimsoft continue to gain momentum with emerging enterprises and mid-market MSPs? We’re watching…
-jp
Joe, valid points all. To be honest, my experience with CA has been almost exclusively from an enterprise standpoint. There have been other “aspects” which do color my opinions, but, in the end, I’ll have to wait and see what happens.
I do note that CA has an exec focused on “growth and emerging markets.” Whether this is by regions of the world or niche products I don’t know, but I do know that it will take lots and lots of paying SMB clients to equal a single enterprise application deal. At the end of the day it is ALL ABOUT EXECUTION. Good products/integrations fail all the time because of poor execution. (Cisco MARS comes to mind…).
And let’s not forget that Nimsoft now carries an additional $350 million dollars of overhead. How CA plans to recoup this sum through a “simplified price scheme targeted at MSPs” could prove to be very, very interesting….and telling about its future prospects.
Completely agree. Execution can never be under-estimated in my opinion – failure is easy to accomplish.
Nimsoft has continued to thrive under our new owners. We are winning more and more MSP/Hosting/Cloud deals because we have all the great things that Nimsoft brought to the table (including a simple price model) and also now have an incredible reach with CA.
Come and see Nimsoft on Demand….from zero to hero in 30 minutes or less….and you never know, we may have a little fun along the way 🙂
3.45pm, Monday May 17th, Reef F, Mandalay Bay
See you there.