Robert Hood, CEO and Founder, SpotLink
What was/is your general reaction to and thoughts about the announcement?
This is bad for MSPs. We are deep customers to both Kaseya and Datto, and they both have products that are largely overlapping. We see this not so much as a synergistic mix of aligned products, but rather as an anticompetitive move that will decrease choices and push up prices for the MSP market.
What do you predict the business impact will look like? The expansion?
Kaseya/Datto will need to decide which are the preferred products of each competing set. Those MSPs that have the one(s) that end up losing will find themselves having to migrate to another platform (e.g. Auth Anvil). This will take years, but moving to another RMM or PSA or backup system is never an easy process.
What will this mean for partners? For the industry as a whole?
Less choice and higher prices for partners. As the MSP tools market consolidates, we will likely see a few large players forming an effective oligopoly and a bunch of small niche players.
What will the new brand look like? Who and what will survive?
These two companies have had drastically different cultures. Datto has been a high-end, high-touch company that had Qty1 pricing with flexible options. Kaseya has been a mass market provider with high entry costs (but relatively low per unit costs) that has tried to move MSPs into long-term contracts. These two different approaches will collide when MSPs are corralled into switching.
Still, we see the following the following winners:
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Kaseya VSA (over Datto RMM)
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Datto Business Continuity (over Kaseya Unitrends)
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Autotask over BMS (but this one might be close)