AVG Adds Microsoft Office 365 Service to RMM Platform

Online security company AVG Technologies has launched a Microsoft Office 365 service module for its Managed Workplace remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform.

The new service module allows managed service providers (MSPs) to use Managed Workplace to remotely monitor and control their customers’ Office 365 cloud-based platform.

“With AVG being so focused on cloud and to ensure we are supporting our customers, it was very important for us to offer monitoring and management of Office 365 for our thousands of MSP customers who use Managed Workplace,” Marco La Vecchia, AVG’s vice president of channel sales, told MSPmentor. “Because over 60 percent of MSPs use Office 365, it was critical in our development plans that our customers could support and obtain recurring revenue streams from supporting Office 365, and do it with ease and simplicity.”

Managed Workplace is a hybrid agentless cloud-based platform that allows MSPs to monitor and manage all local and cloud IT infrastructures and applications.

AVG said the Office 365 service module for Managed Workplace gives MSPs the ability to seamlessly manage cloud environments within its RMM platform and “view all the essential information they need within the same screen, helping them to run their operations more efficiently and further cut down administration costs.”

Mike Foreman, AVG’s general manager for its small and medium-sized business (SMB) segment, said he believes the Office 365 service module will allow MSPs to proactively support their customers.

“There is growing momentum in the channel behind Office 365, which Microsoft has described as the fastest growing business in its history,” Foreman said in a prepared statement. “[This] announcement is a clear example of how the channel’s role is as important as ever. By wrapping their services’ value around a cloud service such as Office 365, the channel can make their role as important as ever. Their ability to demonstrate continuous proactive support puts them firmly in the driving seat when it comes to establishing long-term customer relationships.”

What does the Office 365 service module offer MSPs?

AVG noted the Office 365 service module enables MSPs to:

“The long-term vision of the service module is to ensure our MSP customers can maintain and increase recurring revenue streams in their business,” La Vecchia said. “This service module will give our base a strategic advantage over the competition, and we are extremely excited about that.”

Foreman added MSPs can leverage the Office 365 service module to administer their customers’ mix of physical and online infrastructures.

“Simplification of Office 365 management represents a first step in developing easy ways to manage cloud data within AVG Managed Workplace — something that appears destined to become commonplace as more everyday objects and devices are IP-connected to form the Internet of Things,” he said.

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