News You Missed: MSPs Hold Their Own During COVID-19, Atera Expands Software Patching
We've packed this roundup with news you might have missed in the past month.
September 25, 2020
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Vendasta and multinational distributor Tech Data have launched a new partnership. The move will help bolster Vendasta’s security solutions stack within its reseller platform. In turn, vendors get access to a new network of selling opportunities, which involves 30,000 resellers serving 4 million SMBs. The new ecosystem will allow NexVen vendors to grow their revenue and eventually circle back into the Tech Data fold.
For background, the NexVen Channel Program offers emerging and established product vendors a way to go to market with their products and solutions using the Vendasta Marketplace. Through the program, vendors are able to streamline go-to-market activities, digitize their solutions and access new markets. They can also use the Vendasta platform to drive their marketing automation and bolster their customer relationship management, business operations needs and B2B e-commerce.
Altaro Software recently announced the results of a survey conducted to gauge the impact of COVID-19 on MSPs and their response to the pandemic.
According to Altaro, MSPs have largely dodged business pressures to lay off staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies everywhere have felt the economic uncertainty in every aspect of their businesses. But MSPs certainly have – “managed,” if you will – to hold their ground. The findings reveal an MSP industry that continues to evolve and adapt while identifying opportunities to boost revenue and business performance.
In fact, the survey found that eight out of 10 MSPs did not lay off staff, and those that did expect to rehire within six months. Even though one-third of MSPs said they faced losses of up to 50% in the first half of 2020, 21% reported revenue increases of up to 25%, while 21% saw no change.
OK, so rough start to the year, admittedly. But despite this, more than two-thirds of MSPs expect a better showing in the coming months compared to pre-COVID levels. How’s that for a plot twist?
Nearly 40% of MSPs stated that in terms of revenue in the coming six months, business performance was expected to stay the same, while 28% expected performance to improve by up to 40%. Of those MSPs that expected business performance to decline (27%), six out of 10 said they expected the drop to be between 21% and 40%.
Atera recently announced two delicious new integrations for improved third-party patching and software installation capabilities for Windows and Mac OS, Chocolatey and Homebrew.
The idea is that adding these capabilities will automate as many tasks as possible for MSPs. It also allows partners to increase their revenue streams while reducing manual work.
Using the new installation capabilities, MSPs can be assured that third-party software is always up to date with the latest security patches. With the new integrations, partners can easily search and find popular software and install it throughout an organization.
The benefits of new software patching include: accelerated software deployment; improved security; minimal response time to partner requests for new software installations; and Mac OS and Windows deployment with a single click.
Redstor has launched its Redstor Marketplace, a self-service portal for MSPs designed to simplify and speed up backup, recovery and archiving of customers’ on-premises and cloud data, including Microsoft 365 and G Suite.
This solution is accessible to businesses of all sizes. MSPs are in full control, with the ability to set up a free trial, sell and manage all Redstor data management solutions to customers anywhere in the world through a single automated portal.
MSPs now have the tools they need to better serve their customers and go after new revenue possibilities. This comes at an ideal time considering the COVID-19 world, as the company says deployment and management is easy, without onsite assistance and without the need to buy and install hardware.
Key features of Redstor Marketplace include:
Support a wide range of environments and applications, including Microsoft 365 and G Suite.
Scale rapidly and infinitely as demand changes, without the need for hardware.
Manage a customer’s entire data estate from anywhere.
Take complete control of onboarding, provisioning and billing in a platform built for multi-tenancy, without having to rely on vendor support.
Automate backup and recovery, archiving and DR with a single, web-based control center.
Drive margin-rich, repeatable revenue streams.
Tanaza, a cloud-managed wireless networking provider, recently announced a new partnership with Edgecore Networks, a provider of traditional and open network solutions for enterprises, data centers and telecommunication service providers. The partnership will allow the disaggregated Linux-based Tanaza Operating System, TanazaOS, to run on Edgecore Networks open Wi-Fi access points.
“Tanaza and Edgecore Networks share the vision of delivering disaggregated hardware and software networking solutions that enhance connectivity providers’ choice, control and innovation while lowering the total cost of ownership,” remarked Sebastiano Bertani, CEO of Tanaza. “By partnering with Edgecore Networks, MSPs, service providers and operators interested in the operational efficiency and flexibility of Tanaza’s software can now enjoy it with the robust and high-performing Edgecore’s hardware, for indoor and outdoor deployments. Edgecore Networks plays a leading role in the disaggregation of hardware and software in the data center and Wi-Fi space, and partnering with them was just a matter of time.”
Infrascale just announced a rather large overhaul of its support methodologies, including revised support practices and the launch of new premium support services to drive success for its MSP customers. These improvements follow key leadership changes and a headquarters move in 2020, laying the foundation for growth in 2021.
The Infrascale customer support framework is focused on customer care and success throughout a customer’s journey. Infrascale begins this process post-sale with an onboarding process, and then the continuous monitoring of services, a proactive care and outreach team, and on-demand reactive support. In addition to its standard framework, Infrascale is offering premium support and concierge services.
“In a time when we are relying more and more on artificial intelligence and self-service, it’s more important than ever to take a holistic approach to supporting our customers. While technology is great and AI can help with some of the less difficult inquiries, it’s easy to lose the ‘human touch’ that makes a difference,” said Russell Reeder, CEO of Infrascale. “At Infrascale, our support is powered by people, and we pride ourselves on making sure our customers know they are more than a case number. They are our partners. We treat their data just as we treat our own.”
Centreon now offers a software package exclusively dedicated to MSPs.
In today’s highly competitive market, MSPs really must offer a distinct portfolio of services that goes beyond just monitoring and managed services. With Centreon MSP Edition, the idea is that MSPs will be able to create multiple service offers that bring value to their customers, while improving productivity and profitability.
MSPs must support their customers in the next stages of digital transformation, and all that entails. Gartner estimates that “by the end of 2021, over 50% of large companies will develop at least one edge computing project, compared to under 5% in 2019.” This creates a new growth opportunity for MSPs, who will be able to manage their customers’ new IT environments.
“The unified communications space has been significantly disrupted. WebRTC and ubiquitous collaboration solutions have shaken up the landscape. MSPs must adjust their tools to address this new landscape. Centreon is a tool that embraces the ability to monitor legacy assets and new IoT and next generation intelligent communication devices synchronously,” said Noel Gish, chief innovation officer and VP of business development at Yorktel, a North American MSP with which Centreon has just signed an agreement.
Centreon MSP Edition is a complete commercial package based on a customized and dedicated pricing model, designed to perfectly fit MSPs’ business needs. Centreon’s special MSP Edition monitors the full range of IT environments, equipment and applications that can be found for any client, from cloud to edge, while taking into account the extra criticality of a monitoring platform shared with numerous customers. Most notably, Centreon MSP Edition helps MSPs provide services such as:
Proactive monitoring to identify problems in the customer’s IT infrastructure.
A “Morning Check” with a simple dashboard being sent out to the customers automatically every morning to inform them that their operations are running smoothly.
Real-time visibility of IT performance with customized dashboards, graphical cockpits and geographic views.
SLA reporting to report on service levels delivered to the customers, e.g. availability rates, number of critical alerts, mean time to repair, mean time between failures.
Centreon now offers a software package exclusively dedicated to MSPs.
In today’s highly competitive market, MSPs really must offer a distinct portfolio of services that goes beyond just monitoring and managed services. With Centreon MSP Edition, the idea is that MSPs will be able to create multiple service offers that bring value to their customers, while improving productivity and profitability.
MSPs must support their customers in the next stages of digital transformation, and all that entails. Gartner estimates that “by the end of 2021, over 50% of large companies will develop at least one edge computing project, compared to under 5% in 2019.” This creates a new growth opportunity for MSPs, who will be able to manage their customers’ new IT environments.
“The unified communications space has been significantly disrupted. WebRTC and ubiquitous collaboration solutions have shaken up the landscape. MSPs must adjust their tools to address this new landscape. Centreon is a tool that embraces the ability to monitor legacy assets and new IoT and next generation intelligent communication devices synchronously,” said Noel Gish, chief innovation officer and VP of business development at Yorktel, a North American MSP with which Centreon has just signed an agreement.
Centreon MSP Edition is a complete commercial package based on a customized and dedicated pricing model, designed to perfectly fit MSPs’ business needs. Centreon’s special MSP Edition monitors the full range of IT environments, equipment and applications that can be found for any client, from cloud to edge, while taking into account the extra criticality of a monitoring platform shared with numerous customers. Most notably, Centreon MSP Edition helps MSPs provide services such as:
Proactive monitoring to identify problems in the customer’s IT infrastructure.
A “Morning Check” with a simple dashboard being sent out to the customers automatically every morning to inform them that their operations are running smoothly.
Real-time visibility of IT performance with customized dashboards, graphical cockpits and geographic views.
SLA reporting to report on service levels delivered to the customers, e.g. availability rates, number of critical alerts, mean time to repair, mean time between failures.
It is officially autumn (or spring, for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere). With the changing of the seasons come several company and industry changes. Vendasta, Altaro, Redstor, Infrascale and Atera are shaking things up to provide the best possible service to their customers.
Bolstering security solutions stacks and managing risk are still top of mind. A new survey gauges the impact of COVID-19 on MSPs. Tied closely to that, overhauls of support methodologies are happening. Also, there are software patching capabilities expansions. The list goes on.
Check out our snapshot of recent news in the slideshow above so you can keep a finger on the pulse of the channel happenings.
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