Kaseya Reveals Two-Year Road Map

To aid in this quest, the vendor is making its API available to third-party software developers for integration with their products, Kaseya CEO Gerald Blackie told a group of partners gathered this week in Las Vegas for the vendor's first-ever partner conference, called Kaseya Connect.

"Third parties are a crucial part of our strategy going forward," he said.

Kaseya's strategy revolves around the concept of a central IT resource-planning (ITRP) infrastructure that makes it easier to manage all aspects of computing environments, from desktop and server performance to financial applications to mobile devices such as smart phones, Blackie said.

In following this vision, Kaseya plans to put an end to poor management of corporate IT resources, which too often now are disorganized and scattered through organizations in the form of spreadsheets and documents, he said.

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Kaseya, based in San Francisco, competes with a growing number of platform vendors, such as N-Able Technologies Inc., Silverback Technologies Inc. and Level Platforms Inc., as it seeks to extend the reach and expand the functionality of its technology.

Kaseya Executive Vice President Jim Alves shared with partners the new functions and features the company plans to add to its platform in 2007 and 2008, starting with a maintenance update some time this month with a data backup and disaster recovery module.

Also this year, the company is planning the addition of an endpoint security module, which partners will use to manage anti-virus and anti-malware applications from the Kaseya platform console. Alves said Kaseya is in the process of completing an agreement with a third-party vendor for the endpoint security module.

Other additions planned for this year, Alves said, include a Kaseya Integration Toolkit for third parties to integrate their technology with Kaseya, an active directory, service level management tools and a CRM module. In addition, the vendor plans to roll out the first release of its ITRP Framework, with further releases to follow next year.

Plans for 2008 also include launching an agent to manage and monitor Macintosh machines, an agent for mobile devices, an asset management module and a product license management tool.

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The company's plans seemed to strike a note with partners who, depending on their particular customer focus, welcomed different pieces of the company's road map.

Eric Speer, owner of Lan Doctors Inc., Mahwah, N.J., said he is looking forward to the Macintosh agent, the CRM piece and other planned improvements. Lan Doctors has moved all customers to the Kaseya platform, so the more that the vendor adds to its technology, the better it will be for the MSP to manage its business, Speer said.

Jon Lawrence, president of Data Balance, a solution provider in Clearwater, Fla., cited endpoint security, CRM and management of mobile tools among the improvements to which he is looking forward.

By adding so much functionality to its platform, Kaseya is making it easier for providers to do their jobs, said Lawrence. As a result of the additions, he said, providers will have a lesser need to cobble solutions together manually because more functions will be automated.

In addition to the technology improvements Kaseya has planned, the company this week also is launching an MSP sales and marketing program, a move Alves said addresses one of the biggest hurdles channel companies face when trying to adopt the managed services model. Kaseya is launching the training program, which includes turnkey marketing methods and materials, coaching sessions, online and on-site sessions, through a partnership with Acumen Management Group Ltd., Vonotore, Tenn., and Technology Marketing Toolkit Inc., Franklin, Tenn.