During a briefing at the Kaseya Connect User Conference, CEO Gerald Blackie walked me through the company’s software as a service (SaaS) strategy — which includes a portal that will allow managed service providers (MSPs) and VARs to pick and choose from a range of SaaS services. Here’s a look at Kaseya’s plans, including work with Terremark and Amazon Web Services.
According to Blackie, the SaaS system is built atop Kaseya 6 code (which also has an on-premise version). The SaaS service in beta now with a full pay service expected to launch sometime in July 2009. The Kaseya portal will be a provisioning system, where users gain a private template to choose from a range of services — such as online backup.
Kaseya’s SaaS design will leverage cloud services from both Amazon.com and Terremark (which just announced strong managed services revenue of its own). The Amazon relationship will involve both the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3). The Kaseya SaaS service will be available on a global basis (in English) at launch, with localized language support to follow. Sorry, I don’t have pricing information yet.
To me, it sounds like the SaaS system is built for smaller VARs and MSPs that don’t have the time, expertise or financial resources required to deploy a local, on-premise managed services platform. Kaseya certainly remains committed to its on-premise software as well. And MSPs can mix-and-match on-premise an SaaS options from Kaseya.
Who Tracks the Data?
Keep a close eye Kaseya’s plans to be “the system of record” for MSPs — both on-premise and in the cloud. Generally speaking, the most successful MSPs use a mix of RMM (remote monitoring and management) and PSA (professional services automation) software.
On the one hand, Kaseya wants its on-premise and SaaS software to sit at the center of an MSP’s universe. But on the other hand, Blackie is careful to reinforce ongoing relationships with PSA companies such as ConnectWise, Autotask and Tigerpaw.
“We take a position and we’ve made it clear to [PSA vendors] that the industry will shake out,” says Blackie. “There will be a system of record. That means there will be one base that everyone processes to.” However, Blackie adds: “We’re not looking to go deeply into PSA. If you want rich PSA, we’re hopeful ConnectWise, Autotask and Tigerpaw will have tight integration [with Kaseya].”
All three PSA vendors attended and sponsored the Kaseya conference, and all three articulated an ongoing strategy to interoperate with Kaseya and other third-party remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools.
I mulled Blackie’s comments over the weekend before writing this post. During some of the SaaS demo I saw and some of our discussion, it seemed as if Blackie was predicting potential competition and/or overlap between Kaseya and its PSA partners. At the very low end of the market, where break-fix resellers and small, aspiring MSPs are seeking some basic service desk, ticketing and SaaS options, it seems as if Kaseya is trying to be a one-stop software/SaaS provider for VARs and MSPs. But as Blackie said himself, “We’re not looking to go deeply into PSA.”
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Posted In: Platforms | Professional Services Automation (PSA) | Remote Monitoring & Management Software | Software as a Service and Hardware as a Service
Tags: Autotask Professional Services Automation | Autotask PSA | ConnectWise Professional Services Automation | ConnectWise PSA | Kaseya CEO Gerald Blackie | Kaseya Connect User Conference | Kaseya Portal | Kaseya SaaS | Kaseya Software as a Service
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