Ingram Micro Seismic, Nimsoft to Partner On Managed Services
The Ingram Micro Seismic team on Aug. 31 is expected to announce plans to offer Nimsoft’s software to VARs and managed service providers targeting mid-market and large enterprises. But this isn’t just a “reseller” deal. Here are some early details plus some observations about the evolving Master MSP and remote monitoring markets.
First, the forthcoming news: Ingram Micro Seismic intends to launch Seismic Enterprise Monitoring powered by Nimsoft. It will be available immediately to Ingram Micro channel partners in the U.S. and Canada. The platform includes business service management and dashboards, as well as a monitoring services for applications, SLAs, end-user response times, servers, databases and the network, according to Ingram Micro.
Justin Crotty, VP of services at Ingram Micro North America, confirms the Nimsoft relationship and positions it for VARs that sell core infrastructure technologies such as data center solutions, unified communications and security to mid-market and enterprise customers.
Enterprise Play
Generally speaking, privately held Nimsoft competes against HP OpenView, IBM Tivoli, CA Unicenter and BMC Software in large accounts. But gradually over the past year or two, Nimsoft has made a stronger name for itself in the managed services market.
If you track Nimsoft CEO Gary Read’s blog, you can get a pretty good read on where the company has been and where Nimsoft is heading. The company doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about PC management. Instead, generally speaking, Nimsoft targets infrastructure (routers, VoIP, etc.) and application-level monitoring and management.
Expanded Choices
Meanwhile, Ingram Micro Seismic offers a range of hosted and turnkey managed services solutions to VARs and MSPs. Last I heard, more than 1,000 MSPs were leveraging at least one Ingram Micro Seismic offering. Translation: Ingram Micro Seismic essentially is a Master MSP — offering a range of services to VARs and MSPs.
As part as that effort, Ingram Micro Seismic already offers remote monitoring capabilities based on Level Platforms‘ software. But I need to be careful here: I don’t want to suggest that Ingram is somehow moving away from Level Platforms and moving toward Nimsoft.
During a quick phone call, Crotty made it clear to me that the Ingram Micro-Level Platforms relationship remains strong. Plus, it’s important to keep some key market segment differences in mind:
- Level Platforms: The company’s fastest-growing business involves SaaS, and Level Platforms has been working hard to ensure it has broad appeal among all VARs and MSPs — especially Microsoft solutions providers that are now exploring SaaS and cloud computing.
- Nimsoft: Generally speaking, I think CEO Gary Read would concede Nimsoft isn’t out to serve the MSP masses. Instead, Nimsoft is going after mid-market and enterprise level channel partners. Plus, Nimsoft is an on-premise solution.
Read is traveling today but I hope to connect with him for more thoughts soon. In the meantime, watch for the official Ingram Micro Seismic-Nimsoft announcement. Sounds like it will arrive Aug. 31.
Follow MSPmentor via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; and Twitter. And sign up for our Enewsletter; Webcasts and Resource Center.
Joe
Sorry I couldn’t be available today – just arrived back from Europe exhausted but ecstatic. We’ve just had one of the best weeks ever in our history – and guess what….driven by MSPs and hosting providers.
Anyhow to get to the point…I absolutely agree with your article. Nimsoft does not consider itself competitive with Level Platforms. We are not a mass-market MSP platform, we are specifically targeted at MSPs that have critical mass in their business, want to scale their business profitably and are often dealing with the greater needs/platform coverage of MSPs with slightly larger customers, or large numbers of smaller customers.
We actually tell our sales force that if we find ourselves in a competitive situation with Level Platforms (or N-Able for that matter), then to sit down with the customer and re-assess their needs because one of us is in the wrong place.
This is clearly a major relationship for Nimsoft and we want to thank all our friends at Ingram Micro for making this a reality.
The ultimate winners….mid to large MSPs who will now have greater access to clear industry leader.
Gary Read
http://www.nimsoft.com
Hey Gary: Your comment got stuck in our spam filter for a few days. Sorry about that. I spotted it 9/3 and posted it live.
I also want to make it clear to readers that you’re representing Nimsoft’s perspective — but not necessarily the views of alternative tool providers.
Thanks again for sharing your perspectives.
-jp