Apparently, a growing number of managed service providers (MSPs) are losing faith in Google Postini, a hosted email security and compliance solution. During the ConnectWise Partner Summit in Orlando, three separate MSPs told me they are moving away from Postini because of Google’s poor partner communications.
Google acquired Postini in September 2007 for $625 million in cash. But Postini layoffs in late 2007, inconsistent communications, and an unclear partner strategy have sent some MSPs heading for the exits.
In a video briefing that VARs can view on the Web, Google tells solutions providers about some of the company’s partner strategies.
However, MSPs attending the ConnectWise Partner Summit said Google’s Postini team has become less and less responsive to partners. One MSP that still promotes Postini said those efforts may end soon. The reason: Postini team members are increasingly difficult to reach on the phone, and support emails are increasingly routed to generic inboxes.
Google has been taking its share of hits at the summit. ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini kicked off his keynote Tuesday by telling MSPs they had to keep Google, Dell and Microsoft out of their managed services clouds. “Google doesn’t even know who you are,” says Bellini.
Google: Friend or Foe?
I reached out to Google for an update on the Postini strategy but have yet to hear back. Admittedly, there could be hundreds of MSPs that are happy with Google Postini — but so far, I’m not hearing from them. And I didn’t “seek out” the disgruntled Postini partners here at the ConnectWise Partner Summit. Rather, they reached out to me.
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Tags: ConnectWise Partner Summit | Email security and compliance | Google Postini | Managed Service Provider | Managed Services | MSP
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Hello from a Happy Distributor of Google Security Services powered by Postini. We have no problems with support, as the service is not that difficult to administer and just plain works.
We only sell Postini and have been for over 5 years, along with our hosted email services. Who ever those three MSP’s are, I’ll assume they are not doing that much business anyway to stop offering Postini services.
We have over 100 resellers supporting thousands of mailboxes for their clients, and more are coming on board everyday.
If the three MSP’s want to drop Postini, great! More for those that can and will provide Postini services.
Frank Muto
President
Secure Email Plus
As an MSP providing Postini services, I’ll agree with most of the pain points the other MSPs you spoke with are experiencing. However, we’re willing to endure a little pain (poor support, unclear channel, etc) for a superior cost-effective service. When we have hundreds of clients using our positini services you would have to give us an extremely technological and $$$ reason to switch to another partner out there - the cost to migrate hundreds of accounts would be astronomical.
Plus, who can beat $12/user/year on postini’s bottom offering? Just a year ago that same service was triple the cost through Postini - which a majority of other vendors out there are still charging.
Are we happy with Postini Technology? Very much. Are we happy with Postini support and channel focus? Not so much.
We use MX Logic and really like it. It’s been super easy to sell, even though it’s more expensive than Postini. When we put it head to head against Postini or others, MX Logic wins everytime. They offer support and training to our clients, have great reporting, easy setup, instant results and more. Our margins are great and our internal support is responsive. We’ve been able to schedule webinars for our clients with just a few minutes notice with MX Logic staff.
I’ll always recommend something that costs more if the extra cost equals better value. It’s not always about price.
-Craig
“who can beat $12/user/year on postini’s bottom offering?”
We (Roaring Penguin Software) can. Our top per-user price is less than half of that.
Good to hear Postini is a solid solution, but I worry when I read that even Postini’s supporters don’t think Google understands partnering and the IT channel.
Postini, now Google Apps Security and Compliance, are a great technical solution at an affordable price. Google is learning the importance of channel partners from the companies it has acquired, particularly for SMB and certain vertical market segments.
In speaking with a number of partners, their concerns always seem to end up at Google’s pricing change from $33/box/year down to the $12/box/year. In doing so, Google did shrink the margins for MSPs that could not convey the value of their own services provided with Postini.
We have a defined set of services that are included in our price. When asked why we charge more than Google, we reiterate our services and the value proposition. We rarely lose a sale on price.
With respect to competition, we have never lost a sale to MX Logix and we have a nice bit of business replacing Barracudas.
Regards,
Allen Falcon
CEO
Horizon Info Services, LLC
We are currently evaluating Google offerings for messaging security. We utilize two other partners for this service currently (one does fantastic, the other, well, it isn’t their sweet spot and it shows, so we’re removing them from the equation). We don’t “sell” email filtering as a stand alone service, it is part of the overall MSP package, so in this case, we look at where can we save money and reduce our effort to provide a good product. So far, the Google offering is pretty much in line on pricing. Feature wise, this is where they differentiate themselves: they offer email encryption and archive options that our current prefered provider doesn’t have currently, athough these are “on the roadmap” there is no timeframe. Regarding What Arnie said about keeping the Dell’s Googles and MS out of the MSP’s managed services clouds: We don’t need to do that, Dell and MS will do that themselves, they won’t be able to maintain an MSP relationship like most of us can, they just aren’t built for that close relationship with the customer. Ms has their own kookie ideas of how smb’s use their channel operates (they think MSP are just VAR’s and target their partner program accordingly) and Dell, same thing. Google, they provide the platform (Like ConnectWise provides a platform) to perform certain functions. We want the most cost effective tool for the job.
Toddsw: Have you made inquiries to Google about their offerings, and has Google been responsive? Curious to hear (read) about your experiences.
Joe,
Google does not go around blasting in the media what the margins are for their channel, as some others do. They protected their channel and kept the Postini name alive, unlike other buyouts that kill off a reputation.
Google understood the value and reputation of Postini. Therefore, with the “powered by Postini” name still in play, Google created a powerful statement in saying that it stood behind the channel of those that helped build the Postini brand name.
So, for all those you say do not think Google understands partnering and the IT channel, have not really thought about it well enough.
Frank Muto
President
Secure Email Plus
Frank: Thanks for your thoughts. I never suggested that Google has — or should — told the media about margin strategies.
Rather, I’m wondering if Google has been a solid partner that communicates clearly with solutions providers. Let’s put the media on the sideline for a minute: Has Google communicated effectively and directly with its partners?
I say yes, but you have others that say no. Then on the other hand, each of us may have different needs or have different business models. All we do is Postini and hosted email services, while others may have more on their menu.
We have resellers under us, so we communicate on a constant level as needed and answer questions in a timely manner. I’ll say there is always room for improvement, especially during a transition from one management to another. That’s part of the business life cycle.
So for those who have expressed otherwise to you directly, may need to refocus their business model with Google, or move on to other solutions for their clients.
Frank Muto
President
Secure Email Plus
Frank: Thanks for the added perspective. Our readers appreciate the ongoing dialog from somebody who’s in the trenches.
Hi Joe,
Yes, Google has been very responsive. They got back to me within an hour of my initial rfi via their web form. We’ve talked thru specifics of our needs as an MSP and the goals we expect in changing providers. Google was proactive in getting the info to me I needed to help the decision along. They’ve also been good with follow ups to keep the process moving. Overall, great job from their sales team thus far. I’m setting up time w/ their techs to dig deeper into the admin side of things, see the reporting outputs, etc… About the only thing I wouldn’t like is the minimums they charge if we were a smaller MSP.
@Toddsw: Thanks for adding some balanced perspective. Sometimes the media (myself included) is guilty of saying something is “all good” or “all bad.” It’s good to see some balanced perspectives (pro and con) in our comments area.
Interesting that at http://psmtp.mobi/customers/c_case_studies.php Postini’s partner case study is a company called Integarlis and if you check here they just announced a global lead with the services from Webroot - http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn/news/2227973/integralis-cultivates-webroot