Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola wrote a post for his company’s blog in response to recent publicity about the competitive tactics of the MSP toolset maker and rival ConnectWise.

MSPmentor has agreed to publish the entire blog post here:

Really Setting the Record Straight: Response to ConnectWise’s ‘Fake News’ Blog Post

On May 19, 2017, Arnie Bellini, the CEO of ConnectWise, published a blog on the ConnectWise website titled “Setting the Record Straight: ConnectWise & Kaseya.” That same day, he emailed me directly to say, “Come on Man!” from “one Italian CEO to another” and attached a threat letter from ConnectWise’s lawyers.

Let me set the record straight. Kaseya never said that ConnectWise was discontinuing its Automate (formerly LabTech) product line. Kaseya welcomes the competition and looks forward to facing off with ConnectWise in the marketplace by offering the BEST products available. We at Kaseya are very proud to offer the industry-leading MSP Platform, which is flexible, reliable, secure, scalable and open — everything that MSPs need to scale their operations and grow their businesses.

Even a cursory glance at the voicemail that ConnectWise trumpets as “proof” that Kaseya has been spreading “totally false information” shows that ConnectWise is simply making up facts. Kaseya never said that ConnectWise was discontinuing anything. In fact, Kaseya’s voicemail assumed that Automate would still be around for the foreseeable future.

Nor is it true that Kaseya is claiming that ConnectWise is closing off all integration with its platform. To ensure that our mutual customers can continue to receive the benefits of both the ConnectWise PSA and the Kaseya RMM solution, Kaseya has made substantial investments and adapted to address ConnectWise’s change in approach. Frankly, it is in our DNA to innovate and provide the best experience for all our customers. We have devoted the necessary resources to ensure that our customers, no matter who else they work with, will continue to benefit from our open product strategy, and be able to experience the benefits of integration. Kaseya will continue to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to ensure that the ConnectWise Manage (as well as Autotask and Tigerpaw) PSA solutions integrate with the Kaseya VSA platform.

Serving our customers is our number-one priority, and we will always do what is right for them. I can personally commit that Kaseya will continue to pursue our open strategy and has no plans to have, nor ever anticipates having, anything other than an open strategy, doing all that is possible to ensure that products such as ConnectWise PSA continue to have a smooth integration with Kaseya VSA.

That all said, there is one thing that ConnectWise and Kaseya can agree on. Kaseya believes in honest and fair competition and an open ecosystem of choices for our customers and partners. Customers should have as many options as possible to make the right decisions for their business.

We not only believe that we have the best products in the market, but also that our business model and pricing structure better align us with our customers’ success than any of our competitors. Our financial model as a company is directly correlated with the success of our customers, meaning if our MSP partners’ businesses shrink, our revenue shrinks as well. Therefore, we have every incentive to make sure that our customers are truly successful as a business, NOT only in selling them more software licenses.

This is best illustrated in the financial model of our PSA solution. We offer a modern, comprehensive, all-in-one second-generation PSA solution for a significantly lower cost than ConnectWise Manage, or any other PSA vendor. This allows MSPs to reallocate the capital that was once consumed by expensive, non-revenue-generating PSA solutions into REVENUE GENERATING activities, such as hiring more techs, hiring more sales people, or investing in other revenue-generating software solutions that customers are willing to pay for in the form of a managed service. We do this recognizing that while PSA products are critical for the success of an MSP, no customer is paying an MSP a dime for a managed service built around a PSA solution.

We have also dispelled the notion that migrating from a costly legacy PSA solution to a modern, cost-effective PSA is difficult and fraught with business risk. Our “white glove” PSA migration services and consulting partners enable MSPs to free the financial shackles imposed on their business from legacy PSA solutions and quickly and cost effectively leave the past behind by moving to a modern PSA solution.

Fundamentally, Kaseya believes in providing the best product and the best service to its customers. That is the way to make customers happy and win new business, and that is what Kaseya devotes all its time and resources to pursuing. Unfortunately, rather than stick to its knitting, ConnectWise has decided to write blog posts and send threatening lawyer letters and emails.

I am very confident that when customers take the time to get past the sparring between ConnectWise and Kaseya, and look at the products, services, strategy and overall capability of what our two great companies offer the market, most will realize that Kaseya, with its IT Complete strategy, represents the best investment opportunity for their businesses to grow and be successful.

We at Kaseya are singularly focused on making MSPs successful. From the day I joined Kaseya, I have been honored to be a part of a company that puts the customer first in the way that Kaseya does. We are by no means perfect in every aspect of our business, but the continued and dedicated focus of our employees around the world to makes MSPs successful is incredibly inspiring for me, and is the reason I am 100-percent confident that Kaseya is, and will continue to be, the best platform provider for an MSP to leverage to be successful.

Results are what count, ConnectWise, not words.

View the original post at Kaseya Blog.