Is LogicNow Poised for a Breakout Moment?

If you follow the PSA (professional services automation) and RMM (remote monitoring and management) markets, you know that massive change is afoot. Take mergers and acquisitions.

Kaseya just bought Vorex in February, giving the PSA developer a low-cost RMM solution. The deal follows AutoTask’s acquisition of CentraStage, ConnectWise’s purchase of ScreenConnect and so on and so on. Deal-making and mergers are expected to only continue, leading to significant market consolidation, right?

Not so fast, says Dave Sobel, senior director of partner community and field marketing at LogicNow. In an interview with MSPmentor this week at CompTIA’s Annual Membership Meeting (AMM) in Chicago, Sobel outlined why he thinks LogicNow is poised for a breakout year after “slogging away with competitors” for the past several. Instead of classic macro-economic market consolidation, he sees signs of maturity, which he believes will lead to greater differentiation, at least for his company. “Different people see the market going in different ways,” Sobel said. “We’re the only ones to come out with a clear vision of the future and a differentiation.”

The differentiation, of course, is framed around the company's big bet on analytics and business intelligence, which began last September when the company unveiled LOGICcards. The “cards” provide IT service providers access to data-driven insights derived “from billions of data points collected from the millions of devices managed by the tens of thousands of MSPs that depend on the MAX RemoteManagement platform,” according to the company. The cards rely heavily on machine learning and are a cornerstone of the company’s investment in big data capabilities.

When first introduced, LogicNow unveiled roughly 20 or so cards that provided MSPs with actionable insights to detect and predict things like device failure, business opportunities and security threats. Today, the number has grown to more than 100 cards. The cards cover everything from industry intelligence to education. There’s even one to help prevent the spread of a software virus that works by downloading the Tor browser onto an unsuspecting customer’s desktop. After installing itself surreptitiously, the browser than sends usage information without warning to an unknown and almost always unauthorized destination. The LOGICcard identifies when the malware has been detected so an MSP can move to not only block the download of the browser but also prevent the operation of the command and control features of the virus, including blocking access to suspected IP addresses in China.

From LOGICcards, Sobel says the company is now moving forward with data-driven NOWactions, which take the alerting capabilities of the cards one step further. With NOWactions, the “healing” of IT problems and issues is streamlined if not automated.

In addition to the machine learning capabilities that the company has developed, it is also spending big on new talent (think data scientists) and new software capabilities. The goal is to roll out Big Data capabilities across its entire spectrum of products and services.

Meantime, the company is working in other ways to put data into action. Take its February acquisition of iScan Online. iScan’s technology underpins the LogicNow MAX Risk Intelligence solution, which is being integrated into the company’s MAX RemoteManagement product suite. It provides organizations the ability to quantify the value of data stored on end user devices such as laptops. Sobel, for one, had his own device tested to see just how much value his data was worth. Much to his surprise, his laptop was found to have information worth an estimated $1.7 million on it. The data included confidential emails, sensitive personal identifying information and even commentary that Sobel would prefer to keep private.

“Imaging being able to help a customer understand how much value they have on their devices at any one time and how damaging it would be to have this lost or compromised,” Sobel said.

“By putting more data to use in more ways, we can empower MSPs like no other company. This is due to our unique cloud architecture and our distinct market vision,” said Sobel.