Kaseya CEO: Software Subscription Model is Working

When Kaseya shifted to a subscription-based pricing model in 2012, CEO Gerald Blackie admits it was a trepidatious move. But four months into 2013, Kaseya now has enough experience under its belt to determine the move was a good one.

“We now have a half-million users licensed on our framework,” Blackie said during the Kaseya Connect 2013 user conference. “We are being cautious with it as we grow, but we feel like we are in a place where we feel we have enough metrics now that we understand the cost and cost benefits of the model.”

The company has experienced growth with its technology, as Blackie noted, and in areas that at first glance might seem somewhat out of the ordinary. Use of the Kaseya framework within corporate IT departments, for example, is seeing significant growth—Blackie pointed out that 30 percent of Connect attendees are doing corporate IT.

“We have a lot of education, healthcare, banking and retail customers in particular that are consuming Kaseya as a tool to utilize for their in-house purposes,” he said.

Those four verticals, which have always been areas of opportunity for service and solution providers, are on the short list of opportunity for Kaseya’s users. Kaseya CMO Bob Davis said the company has done “quite a bit” in the verticals, assembling solution bundles that solve “problems we found were similar” and adding functionality focused on each industry. “We’ve received great traction on these offerings,” he said.

Kaseya highlighted these verticals bundles at Connect, as well as technologies both new and old.

“We put lot of work in the general remote control technologies in server and clients, including new user interfaces, snappy performance [and] interaction that’s useful for individual management,” Davis said. “If the social networks are any indication, the place exploded when users saw that. It drew a collective ‘this is cool’ from everyone.”

Also at the event, Kaseya showed off its new network monitoring platform, which has evolved to include technology the company gained with its Intellipool acquisition a few years ago, Blackie said. The new features provide further integration of that technology into the Kaseya framework.

“Also, we’ve spent lot of time exposing people to some of the deeper elements of policy and automation, which has always been part of the product but it’s still something very useful to highlight,” Davis said. “Policy is huge—it’s like a door opening to a new set of services and efficiencies, which leads to higher margins if you’re an MSP.”

Blackie believes Kaseya is hitting the right spots with its users, based on the feedback he’s heard. The trick will be to keep hitting those spots, even as demographics change and user needs shift.

“We are looking to continue to improve our offerings and grow penetration in the market and evolve our technologies such that customer base can benefit,” he said. “In other words, more of the same, but more.”