Kaseya CEO Gerald Blackie has strongly denied a rumor that the company plans to take its business direct and circumvent VARs and managed service providers. Here’s the scoop, directly from Blackie.
First, some background: During today’s N-able Partner Summit in Dallas, several managed service providers suggested to me that Kaseya has an aggressive direct sales model outside of the United States. Plus, those MSPs alleged that Kaseya plans to extend that aggressive direct sales model into the US … as an effort to increase US margins amid potentially slowing sales in the turbulent US economy.
Separating fact from fiction in this market is always a little tricky, especially when it involves MSPs using competing software products. Much like the old operating system wars (Apple vs. Microsoft), MSPs are pretty passionate about their platform providers.
Kaseya Responds
So, is Kaseya planning a purely direct sales model or an aggressive direct sales push in multiple markets that bypasses MSPs and VARs?
“I cannot think of anything more patently ridiculous than these allegations,” wrote Kaseya CEO Gerald Blackie in an email to MSPmentor. “So, let me put the record straight with the following points:
- We have a hard policy that all SMBs under 100 employees seeking Kaseya solutions — software or services — be steered to a partner in their area. Period. And this is true for everywhere in the world: North America, LATAM, APAC or EMEA. We make no exceptions.
- We do direct sales only in the corporate space where there is no partner who can reasonably manage the opportunity or where it is not feasible to expect partners, focused as they are on service delivery, to manage a large complex software sale with the reasonable expectation of success. However, we do quite regularly work with our partners on sizable software sales opportunities.
- We have not deviated from this plan since our inception in 2003. We hold the line on pricing and all other partner related issues so that we are utterly transparent and beyond reproach in our dealings with our partners. They are our life’s blood, and will be for many years to come. We will do nothing to compromise our good standing in that regard.
- Far from suggesting we are hurting, I can tell you that we are already on track for a record quarter and a record year, a year that has seen our revenue double. All regions and all business units are doing very well in this difficult economic environment.”
Blackie’s reply hit my inbox pretty quickly. If Kaseya did plan a pure direct sales model, I suspect it would have taken Blackie far longer to craft a response to my inquiry.
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Tags: Kaseya CEO Gerald Blackie | Managed Service Provider | Managed Services | MSP | N-able Partner Summit
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Joe,
Let me preface this by saying I am a Kaseya msp partner, love the product, and all the other obligatory kaseya-isms that you probably hear all the time. Now, to the meat of my reply:
I attempted a sale to a potential client (credit union) who just wanted the software. The IT manager wanted to add Kaseya to his IT toolbox in order to become more proactive in his network support.
The short of the post is that the potential client called Kaseya, even told the sales person about working with us, and Kaseya sold him coporate licenses directly, eliminating us completely. And with what he paid for his licenses, I would have made a nice profit!
So CEO Blackie’s “hard policy regarding customers with less than 100 employees” must not be in effect in Texas. Apparently, regularly working with partners on sizable sales isn’t available in Texas, either.
He may think there is a hard policy in place, but somebody forgot to tell his salesperson who works my area. I was completely cut out of the sale AFTER I did the prep work on the client, and sold them on the product. The client even told the Kaseya rep. he was working with my company.
In summary, a quick email reply from the CEO does not mean Kaseya is not being aggresive in the marketplace.
Hey Tim: On the one hand, I don’t have the real-world experience in the MSP market that you have. But on the other, I have seen other companies (HP for instance years ago) struggle with their “hard deck” policies to ensure direct sales folks don’t impact VARs.
But i would encourage you to speak directly with Kaseya management and raise your concerns. The louder you raise your voice, the more you will be heard. And let us know how it goes.
All the best,
-jp
Tim:
Thanks so much for your comments.
We certainly do our best to ensure our MSP partners are connected and engaged with their own clients. We have innumerable examples where we have redirected customers back to their MSP partner when it comes to our attention.
We will investigate this instance to see what happened and post a response ASAP.
Also, feel free to contact me directly if I can help in any other way.
Dave Spector
VP/Marketing ITSP
Kaseya
415-694-5700 X 1335
dave.spector@kaseya.com
Thanks for both of your comments. Dave and I have talked via telephone and we will see how this turns out. And I will post the results, either way. I don’t have an argument against the original post, which actually is in regards to Kaseya making a hard push into the market. The complaint I have simply stems from the CEO’s statement about a “hard Policy” with customers of less than 100 employees. I’m not sure if there are other Kaseya MSP’s in my area of 325,000 but I have never had a lead from Kaseya. Which either means:
1. There have been no leads to give (I know of one)
2. There are other Kaseya MSP’s in my market and they get the lead.
3. Kaseya is not passing this info on to me as the CEO says.
Thanks for listening.
Tim: thanks for taking the time to explain your concern and interacting on MSPmentor. The more we all talk the better the managed services market will perform.
It’s November 2nd, I haven’t heard a word from Kaseya, and I haven’t seen a post. I guess our definitions of ASAP differ somewhat.
Tim B
Networthy Systems
As an update, Bill Falk called me today with a resolution regarding this. I consider the matter closed.
Tim B
Networthy Systems
Tim: Good to hear.
Unfortunately, I expect MSPs to hit a few competitive bumps in the months ahead as vendors sort out their go-to-market strategies. And the economic crisis may prompt some rogue salespeople to try to take some deals direct. We’ll be sure to cover the issues on MSPmentor.
Note: I offer the comments above as general industry thoughts rather than specific thoughts on Kaseya.
-jp
I just located this forum and glad to see that an open site for MSP’s exists.
I think it is important to also share a relevant situation. We have a large enterprise client that has outsourced just about all of their IT to us for the past 11 years. We have made a great deal of progress selling them on Kaseya’s solution. Kaseya had attempted to take our client direct even though the client has told the rep repeatedly that they are working with CIO Solutions. There is no doubt that we can absolutely “manage the opportunity” just fine and can easily manage the scale of this large software sale with complete success. We have been doing much more sophisticated projects there since the relationship began in ‘97.
Kaseya’s actions are very disappointing and so is the fact that they have not ever attempted to contact or work with us even though our client keeps trying to point them in our direction. I had spoken to Gerald face-to-face a while back and he seemed channel focused at the time but the actions so far are not backing up the words.
I will try and contact Gerald and/or Dave Spector next week to try and resolve this growing issue and will also report back here with the results.
Regards,
John Petote
CEO/Founder
CIO Solutions
John Petote: Thanks for the note. Let us know how your quest for answers goes.
-jp
In my experience working with and at s/w vendors, and this includes Kaseya, if you have an issue with a deal you brought to the table you need to escalate the conversation to the management level. These types of things happen all the time so spend your time talking to the right people in the org, which looks like you guys have done or are doing.
From my understanding the Kaseya mgmt is very committed to the channel/indirect model.