Kaseya Rides MSP Platform Wave

These are heady times for managed services platform vendors. The software makers responsible for supplying the essential underpinnings of remote monitoring and managed services are riding a wave of popularity, even as the MSP market they serve progresses in fits and starts.

In the past week, popular platform vendors N-able Technologies and Level Platforms both unveiled significant architectural changes to their suites to give managed services providers broader reach, better performance and a significantly improved environment for collaboration. The changes indicate the vendors, both based in Ottawa, are attracting more and varied solution providers into the MSP fold and are busy finding ways to combine the strengths and talents of their partners into new, innovative services offerings. And for sheer excitement among the MSP platform players, it's hard to beat last month's acquisition of Silverback Technologies by hardware titan Dell.

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But nowhere is the heat of the MSP platform market better felt than at Kaseya. The San Francisco-based software maker capped a busy first half of 2007 with word that it experienced a 208 percent hike in sales bookings over last year. The torrid pace is being fueled by deals with both service providers and enterprise accounts, according to Kaseya officials. The company continues to bolster its global customer base, adding several large accounts thus far in 2007 including: Best Associates; Dynamic Air Engineering; Interactive E Solutions; AOK Networking; and Wilkinson Public Library.

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"Kaseya's worldwide momentum and success is driven by several things: best in class software, which has always been our main focus; strong customer service; and growth in the MSP market overall," said Gerald Blackie, CEO of Kaseya. "Internationally, we have seen great growth in our IT managed services customer base as IT service providers, VARs and systems integrators seek to move their IT services offerings to the MSP model focusing on efficient delivery of IT services via Kaseya's strong IT automation technology."

Kaseya started the year naming technology veteran Tim McMullen as chief operating officer, bringing to the company more than 25 years of IT experience. In the spring, the vendor hosted a successful debut user conference in Las Vegas.

And the company really got busy this summer, revving its eponymous end-point security tool and acquiring desktop migration specialist Versora to firm up the Kaseya framework's ability to transfer PC user preferences, profiles, data and settings regardless of operating system. Later in June, Kaseya launched its Technology Alliance Program to foster collaboration with partners and vendors such as Autotask, Catbird and Tigerpaw.

As a group, the MSP software vendors remain bullish. Level Platform's CEO Peter Sandiford said last week that improvements in his company's platform would likely open the door to providing managed services "to whole new groups of service providers. It gets everyone prepared to bring value into a relationship in the game and making money."

Kaseya's Blackie holds a similar positive outlook for a successful second half of 2007. The company plans to further improve its platform to make IT administration easier and to provide deeper support for business applications. Service providers can also expect expanded training and comprehensive support tools, he added.