Starting today, several hundred VARs, MSPs and telecom resellers are attending this week’s Tigerpaw User Conference in Dallas. The big question: Can this second-annual Tigerpaw conference build upon last year’s event, which pumped some fresh ideas into the managed services and telecom reseller markets?
In some ways, I think Tigerpaw benefitted during the 2010 event because attendees — customers, partners, sponsors, media — didn’t really know what to expect. At the time, Tigerpaw was transitioning day-to-day executive management to President James Foxall, part of a close knit family that built the company. Software partners, particularly RMM (remote monitoring and management) software providers, had never really plugged into the Tigerpaw community before. The outcome: Most folks who attended the 2010 conference were surprised by the event’s quality and Tigerpaw’s unique audience of customers and partners.
Sometimes the media — MSPmentor included — is guilty of lumping multiple companies (Tigerpaw, ConnectWise and Autotask) into a single market (professional services automation software). Yes, those three companies compete in many sectors. But each company also has some unique qualities.
In Tigerpaw’s case, Foxall has previously described a strategy to help VARs, MSPs and telco resellers learn from each other. Admittedly, voice and IP converging isn’t a new trend. But Tigerpaw is the rare company with a big community of partners and customers that spans the traditional telecom market as well as the VAR/MSP market.
So what should we expect to see at Tigerpaw User Conference 2011? Back in July, Foxall told MSPmentor that Tigerpaw was working on a new telecom initiative to hep the company’s 1,400+ voice partners move into the data space. I suspect we’ll get more cluse this week. Also, attendees should expect to hear more about Tigerpaw 11R2 — a software platform that debuted in mid-2011. That release included some new billing capabilities to help MSPs more effectively manage recurring revenues.
We’ll also be checking out Tigerpaw’s overall software strategy. So far, Tigerpaw has maintained an on-premise software focus. But we’re curious to learn if Foxall has any updated thoughts on a potential hosted our cloud version of Tigerpaw. MSPmentor Contributing Blogger Nicholas Mukhar will be reporting live from Tigerpaw User Conference over the next two days.
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Posted In: Events | Managed Services | North America | Partner Program | Professional Services Automation (PSA)
Tags: Autotask | ConnectWise | James Foxall | Managed IT Services | Professional Services Automation | PSA software | Telecom Resellers | Tigerpaw User Conference | Voice and Data Convergence | VoIP
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Great Article Joe! I would love to hear more regarding how this PSA has impacted the community and how possibly this PSA tool may play an impact in the future of the IT world.
The reason for my question is: As I attend events, I hear more and more that MSP’s like myself find ourselves unhappy with our current PSA in place(whether Autotask or ConnectWise), but truly the constant rebuttal is there is not another viable solution that can replace what they do(even though it is not done very well).
As someone who is still on the fence whether to switch tools, I find myself looking around the market at the different PSA’s and I can’t help but want to move away from the big Giants. This is mainly due to seeing these PSA giants acquire companies and push it to their customer base even though they well know I use a conflicting tool. At some point my “no” doesn’t seem to register with the sales personnel and they continually hammer me with a sales pitch(even though all I need is support or some assistance).
While many may fall into this trap and purchase these tools, I find myself asking is this good business… What I mean by this is I purchased a PSA tool to streamline many aspects of my business and duly note every process and procedure. To enhance those processes, I also purchase other pieces of software to streamline several of those processes.
To bring this full circle, my concerns are that these PSA giants are beginning to purchase conflicting software’s which put myself and a majority of the customer base in a predicament as to whether the relationship with our conflicting software will still stay in tact with that PSA due to the acquisition .
My other concern is that they are beginning to stray away from the Mission of a PSA and that is to provide me an anchor to make my business more profitable by streaming much of the processes that are typically lost. Every time the phone is picked up, I get a sales pitch left and right for a conflicting tool that I have no passion in using.
I would love to see how Tigerpaw plans on addressing this opening in the market(essentially not choosing sides to make their pockets bigger).
Gary,
Thanks for weighing in. Your comment gave me some food for thought. I will organize some of my own perspectives and post a follow-up blog in a few days that specifically addresses your comments.
-jp
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Hi Joe,
I’m sorry we missed you at the event – but it was great meeting Nicholas! You’ve got a young, eager guy there that you should send all over the planet covering this industry.
Our event was a HUGE success, and by many accounts we surpassed the experience of last year. User attendance was up over 25%, and vendor participation was up even more. Lots of learning, lots of sharing, and lots of fun – who could ask for more?
Gary,in answer to your question – Tigerpaw has ZERO plans to aquire any company or technology at this time. We know what we’re good at, and that’s the business automation of technology providers. We have fantastic partners for RMM backup, hardware as a service, etc. We don’t want to turn partners into competitors, or to be drawn off into areas that aren’t our core competency. What you can expect from Tigerpaw is a continued commitment to building better businesses. Please let me know if there is anything we can do for you.
Well, I’ve got a mountain of emails to get through… cheers!
James Foxall
President, Tigerpaw Software