Call it an MSP industry mashup. CharTec, in addition to working more closely with ConnectWise, is also building a close relationship with Level Platforms, according to multiple sources familiar with the strategy. Do I have the exact details? Um, not really. But here’s some speculation.
First, the usual background in case you haven’t been following MSPmentor…
CharTec specializes in Hardware as a Service (HaaS), and ultimately wants to promote Technology as a Service (TaaS) to MSPs. Apparent true believers include Everon Technology Services, an MSP that recently embraced CharTec’s HaaS guidance. Some folks also consider CharTec as a potential option for MSPs that want to compete with Dell’s direct hardware sales. And there are also signs that CharTec will work more closely with ConnectWise, the PSA software provider.
Meanwhile, Level Platforms is a remote monitoring and management platform. The company’s latest release, Managed Workplace 2010, debuted earlier this month.
In recent weeks, some MSPs have been buzzing about a potential relationship between CharTec and Level Platforms. The chatter has grown louder (much louder) this week. Although I have yet to see or hear an official announcement, it’s safe to say CharTec and Level Platforms will be working together to assist MSPs. I’m standing by for a potential announcement…
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Posted In: On Premise | Remote Monitoring & Management Software | Software as a Service and Hardware as a Service
Tags: CharTec | ConnectWise | Everon Technology Services | HaaS | Hardware as a Service | Level Platforms | Remote monitoring and management | RMM
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Update: Level Platforms VP Dan Wensley confirmed a strategic partnership between Level and CharTec is forthcoming. He didn’t go into deep details but an announcement is expected within days, and deeper discussion will surface during a Level Platforms partner webcast on February 4.
In the meantime, I think it’s safe to say MSPs can expect some sort HaaS-Managed Services software bundle involving servers that ship with Level Platforms’ software preloaded… …
-jp
Really interesting development in the market. I would be curious to hear what your take is on the conversion of MSPs to Cloud Vendors is. It seems like it would be complementary to both of these developments…
Yoram: Thanks for the note. You ask a pretty important question. And it could inspire a multiple-page reply. But here are my quick thoughts…
1. MSPs to Cloud Vendors – Starting Point: Seems like white label SaaS services are the fastest way to get started. A white label SaaS security, storage or email service, for instance.
2. Self-launched clouds: I don’t see MSPs trying to launch clouds on their own. Why do that when you can simply shift customers to public clouds (Amazon, RackSpace, etc.). Some smart solutions providers (examples: Levementum, OpenBI) have already moved some customer applications over to Amazon Web Service.
3. SaaS Tools: Just about all of the PSA and RMM players now offer SaaS or online-centric tools.
4. What’s Next: Virtualized desktops seem to be getting all the buzz. Is it real??? Hmmm…
I skipped 1,000 thoughts here. But the 4 points above are on my mind. Let me know how you address the cloud.
Best
-jp
HI JP-
Thanks for the prompt reply. In Iaas, Paas and Saas, exploiting Cloud Computing can be surprisingly easy. Cloud providers are becoming more and more accessible to the cloud uninitiated. Morph (www.mor.ph) is a perfect example. It can give you a HA cloud with little up front costs that enables you to transform your existing datacenter resources into an easy to manage, instantly scalable and highly available cloud… without your IT staff needing to understand the ins and outs of virtualization. It isn’t just a virtualization front end like EC2, but a full, open standards based end to end solution. With built is necessities like application version tracking, self-healing, load balancing, on-demand scaling as well as automated graphing, monitoring and notifications for every aspect of the application and virtualization layers. It currently is the only ready for production cloud solution. Offering easy enablement of Iaas, PaaS and SaaS. It is multi-tenant and even has built in billing.
This mandates the question, why shift over to public clouds when you’re private cloud offers better customer service and better hardware?
Let me know what you think. Would love to continue this conversation.
Yoram: Thanks for the conversation. You’ve got my attention. Yes, we’re definitely tracking private clouds. And there are opportunities. But which type of private cloud:
1. A private cloud built and managed by the MSP: Does an MSP — especially a small MSP — really want to manage a private cloud and the associated infrastructure?
2. A private cloud built on an end-customer site but managed remotely by the MSP?: This seems like a more likely scenario. Lots of buzz in this area — especially involving Eucalyptus and/or Enterprise Ubuntu Cloud (EUC).
3. Mor.ph: I concede, I’m not familiar with it. But I’m intrigued and I’ll check it out.
Are you affiliated with Mor.ph?
-jp
HI JP-
I am affiliated with Morph. The reason you aren’t familiar with us is because we have spent the last quarter in Japan working with extremely large datacenters converting their offerings into a cloud solution and we are now just entering the US market.
For 1 and 2 – The Morph Control Panel sits on top of Eucalyptus and as long as the server has a hypervisor like Xen, Vmware (why pay for the license?) or KVM installed we take care of everything. We are completely open and standards based and the installation location isn’t important. Everything has been built with an end user in mind so the MSP can manage the service provided to the customer. We take care of the associated infrastructure so MSPs can focus on the benefits of the cloud – not the complexities.
I’m not trying to make this a complete pitch post; I just think it’s a conversation that the MSPs need to be listening to!
Curious what you and others have to say!
Yoram
yoram@mor.ph
Yoram: Please keep me posted. You can email here: joe [at] NineLivesMediaInc.com
Best
-jp