Will SolarWinds/N-able Enter PSA Software Market?

Will N-able Technologies, now owned by SolarWinds (SWI), launch a PSA software platform to compete with Autotask and ConnectWise? The short answer is no. But here's why the speculation popped up in the first place, and how N-able reacted.

N-able plans to integrate SolarWinds' help desk management software with the company's N-central platform. The help desk offering includes a ticketing system. That sparked speculation suggesting SolarWinds will eventually build a full-blown PSA system for N-able. Some of that chatter has popped up at N-able Global Partner Summit this week in Scottsdale, Ariz.

PSA? Not From N-able

In reality, N-able has no plans to enter the PSA market, according to GM JP Jauvin and Senior VP Mike Cullen. SolarWinds' help desk solution "has a great ticketing system but it certainly isn't PSA," Cullen told MSPmentor. During a keynote presentation, Jauvin also was quick to say N-able has zero plans to introduce its own PSA solution.

Still, the PSA question apparently came up again during SolarWinds CEO Kevin Thompson's keynote. I was not in the room at that moment, but Thompson apparently told attendees that SolarWinds will always look closely at features and functions MSPs want.

Time out. Hold on. I think attendees need to remember that Thompson is not knee deep in the MSP market. Instead, he's sharing a rather sweeping message with attendees here. It goes something this: Tell us what you really want. Perhaps SolarWinds can help because the company has extensive R&D resources. Plus, SolarWinds has a big list of existing tools that MSPs may not yet know.

The real takeaway here: Jauvin is running N-able's day to day operations. He knows exactly what will (and won't) be on N-able roadmap, in deep detail.

I'm 100 percent convinced a full-blown PSA system is not on N-able's roadmap. If that changes I'll eat some crow and update this blog entry accordingly.

From The Rumor Archive: N-able about a decade or so ago considered building its own PSA system on top of SugarCRM, from what I've heard (but never really confirmed). The idea was scrapped because N-able already had its hands full with the RMM development.