DattoCon Europe: Kaseya CEO Sets Record Straight on Datto Acquisition, 1 Year Later
Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola talks candidly about the situation that led MSPs to assume the worst over the acquisition.
![Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola at DattoCon Europe Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola at DattoCon Europe](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt8770113d6166851f/6523f1d3a5204259b7edf784/Fred-Voccola-Kaseya-DattoCon-Europe-2023-wide.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
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Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola addressed the integration challenges Kaseya has faced after acquiring a large public company.
“Buying a public company is always challenging,” he said.
The biggest hurdle? The 75-day quiet period after announcing the Datto acquisition.
“We can’t really say much or do much,” he explained, reflecting on that two-and-a-half months between announcing the deal and its closing. “We’re in the people business. People are emotional beings. And emotional beings get emotional in the absence of security. Information isn’t always security, but a lack of information is always a lack of security – or perception of security.
“So, when you announce something … like an acquisition, the questions are nothing more than a desire for information. [MSPs] ask questions that have no answers, and none are given. They don’t have the opportunity to process the information as good or bad for them. They have no information, and the absence of information means imagination comes in and people assume the worst.
“So, when the deal closed, the partner community and the employees of Datto assume the worst because they didn’t know.”
Voccola said the situation was exacerbated by the actions of Kaseya’s “very capable, good, aggressive competition.”
“They were starting to spread fear, doubt and uncertainty just like we would have done,” he said. “I don’t blame them one bit. Jason [Magee, CEO of ConnectWise], God bless him. So, we had to over communicate in a very short period of time.
“And there’s no trust; we were one of Datto’s competitors. So, there was a natural distrust between the two organizations.”
That uncertain environment has created a need to overcommunicate now, said Voccola. The firm is currently addressing a problem with invoicing where it failed to communicate changes to the system to MSPs.
“Instead of being proactive about the changes, and sending an email, doing a video, we didn’t do it,” he said.
Less than 1% of customers have reported issues, he said.
“We had about 100 partners [say], ‘What the eff?’ Now 100 partners out of 50,000 is not bad, but if you’re one of those 100, your life just got worse. That sucks, because for me personally, this job’s a big part of my life. I spent a lot of time doing it; I sacrifice a lot for it. And when you let somebody down, it sucks. It absolutely sucks. And by a simple boneheaded mistake like that. There’s no excuse. There’s no good reason; it’s on us.”
Nonetheless, the CEO maintained that Kaseya has kept to its word on every statement it originally made about Datto. This includes its promise to not make mass layoffs of staff, and to continue to support and invest in Datto products.
“We’re going to lower prices, not raise prices. We’re keeping the Datto brand. We’re keeping the Datto culture. The Datto culture is really important as being a partner/MSP-centric company. We’re not getting rid of those things. We’re going to increase the investment in support.”
“No one believed it because we said it, then we were quiet during the quiet period. Then the deal happens so you have 75-days for people to go crazy.
“We delivered on the things that we’ve said that we were going to do. We’ve integrated every single Datto technology into our platform. We have a common look and feel across all products on the entire platform. Half of our general managers or people that own businesses are former Datto executives. Datto executives make up about 40% of our Leadership Task Force (LTF). Everything that we’ve said we’ve done.”
The CEO said the most common theme among MSPs at DattoCon Europe is that the integration of the products “are awesome.” On stage, he revealed the “time and effort” behind an €8 billion investment in the platform in the last few years.
Voccola said he believes Kaseya has the “right strategy” and vowed to continue to invest “hundreds of millions of euros into the platform.”
“A lot of time a lot of effort and thought has gone into our company. We’ve made a lot of mistakes. And it sucks to get up in front of 1,000 people and say that, but it’s true. And unfortunately, we’ll continue to make mistakes. But the most important part is we’re putting a tremendous amount of investment into the strategy that we’ve got. And while we make mistakes, our company probably does many more things right than we do wrong.”
The CEO said the most common theme among MSPs at DattoCon Europe is that the integration of the products “are awesome.” On stage, he revealed the “time and effort” behind an €8 billion investment in the platform in the last few years.
Voccola said he believes Kaseya has the “right strategy” and vowed to continue to invest “hundreds of millions of euros into the platform.”
“A lot of time a lot of effort and thought has gone into our company. We’ve made a lot of mistakes. And it sucks to get up in front of 1,000 people and say that, but it’s true. And unfortunately, we’ll continue to make mistakes. But the most important part is we’re putting a tremendous amount of investment into the strategy that we’ve got. And while we make mistakes, our company probably does many more things right than we do wrong.”
KASEYA DATTOCON EUROPE — Kaseya has been fielding an influx of MSPs’ questions, concerns and comments since announcing its acquisition of Datto in 2022. Now, a full year after the deal went final, the company is setting the record straight.
The MSP software vendor this week hosted DattoCon Europe, its first in-person customer event in the region since the acquisition.
CEO Fred Voccola sat down with Channel Futures at the event in Dublin, Ireland. While there, Voccola said he was meeting with 150-200 MSP customers. Getting feedback about how Kaseya’s solutions are improving MSPs’ businesses is “the best thing,” he said.
And the worst?
“As the CEO of a business, the worst thing someone said to me was, ‘I didn’t know that you did all the things that you do.’ It’s like we’re failing at communicating to our customers. And that’s tough,” he admitted.
Voccola talks candidly about the situation that led MSPs to assume the worst over the acquisition. He also reveals his thoughts on Kaseya rivals stirring the pot, admits “boneheaded” mistakes, addresses customer concerns and talks continued investment in the company.
See the slideshow above for our discussion with Voccola.
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