Nerdio to Ramp Global Sales Amid Demand for Managed Microsoft AVD

Nerdio is expanding globally to address demand for its managed Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) and Windows 365 services. The managed desktop as-a-service (DaaS) provider says it will start selling in Canada. Australia and New Zealand.

Furthermore, Nerdio plans to extend its sales capacity in the U.K.

Growth of Microsoft’s AVD and Windows 365 has generated high demand for Nerdio’s SaaS-based, Azure-managed DaaS offering, the company said. Last year Nerdio reported more than 1 million Microsoft AVD and Windows 365 DaaS seats under management.

While Nerdio hasn’t updated the seat count, chief revenue officer Joseph Landes estimates it has added several hundred thousand seats. MSPs provision and manage roughly half of those, Landes told Channel Futures. Similarly, many of Nerdio’s partners are systems integrators, including more than 50 end user computing (EUC) enterprise specialists.

Nerdio’s Joseph Landes

“The need to support remote work environments and that need to move to native VDI solutions from Microsoft is driving the majority of this demand,” Landes said. “Our real DNA and our real value-add is around VDI and around Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365.”

Nerdio also is gaining significant business from customers looking to move off traditional Citrix and VMware VDI platforms.

“Every single meeting that we have with an enterprise customer is about leaving Citrix or VMware,” Landes said. “The customer says, ‘I don’t want to be stuck in a proprietary virtual desktop environment or a proprietary brokering system.’ They want to be as native as possible, doing native Azure Virtual Desktop.”

Gathering MSPs in Cancun

Next month, the company plans to make a splash at its NerdioCon event, which it will host in Cancun. So far, Nerdio has signed up more than 160 MSPs to attend the event, Feb. 21-23. Landes acknowledged that the tropical location might appear like an unusual choice these days, and that it may raise eyebrows. But he believes it will put Nerdio’s Microsoft AVD-managed service in the spotlight.

The conference will feature both technical and sales-oriented sessions.

“I think this is going to be the best Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop conference ever put on,” Landes said. “We’re going to be talking for two-and-a-half days about Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365.”

Besides Nerdio’s leaders, Scott Manchester, Microsoft’s lead engineer for AVD and Windows 365 is among those slated to speak. Other Microsoft execs including Tatiana Ospina, senior director of global channel sales, and Kam VedBrat, director of program management for AVD, are also on the agenda.

Landes said Nedio has already lined up 13 sponsors. While Microsoft is the largest, others include Acronis, Blackpoint, Connectwise, Datto, Huntress, Igel, Sherweb, NComputing, Pax8 and ThreatLocker.

DE&I Focus

Landes said a significant portion of the conference will focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. Former Microsoft channel chief Gavriella Schuster will be among those addressing a track devoted to DE&I. Since leaving Microsoft last year, Schuster has become a consultant, helping tech companies bring more diversity into their employee cultures.

“We’re making a big investment in and addressing what I think is a super, super important topic for the MSP audience,” Landes said. “It’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough. We feel as a company, that’s a core value of ours; it’s very important to us. And we’re really honored that Gavriella is going to be there with us.”