Arkeia’s North American sales strategy got a facelift today as the backup software provider formalized its relationship with Channel Chargers, a group made up of what Arkeia Software CEO Bill Evans (pictured) calls “experienced channel veterans,” in order to develop a North American channel program targeted at VARs and managed service providers.

The plan is to develop a North American channel program that includes tools and benefits that will give VARs and MSPs a competitive advantage over other service providers selling backup solutions. The program will also include special backup software pricing, deal registration, technical training, marketing collateral and demand generation.

Arkeia’s North American channel development is fueled by the company’s 2011 customer acquisition and overall sales growth. It also comes shortly after Arkeia released version 3 of its backup and virtual appliances for the mid-market. It’s an offering that includes a remote management cloud backup solution for both local and offsite data protection.

Arkeia hasn’t yet released names of MSPs or VARs that have joined its new program, but more announcements will be coming within the next few months.

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TCI was looking for some regional leverage in North America and found what it was looking for in Savid, which is based in Chicago, Ill. According to TCI Managing Partner Sam Attias, Savid’s headquarters will become TCI’s “central hub” for its new North American security and compliance practice.

TCI is planning to launch the practice during Q1 2012, and its Savid Technologies acquisition appears to be the last piece to be put into place. According to Attias, TCI will leverage Savid’s security consulting expertise in order to build a fully integrated security offering for TCI’s North American partners to sell to their end-users.

Savid’s Security Expertise

Savid’s security expertise starts at the top with Savid Technologies CEO Michael A. Davis, who TCI refers to in its press release as an “industry renowned cloud security expert.” Davis will continue in his current role, as Savid will keep its own brand name and its leadership in place under the terms of acquisition.

More to Come in 2012

The Savid Technologies acquisition is the first major move of the year for TCI. If 2011 was any indication, then we should be hearing a lot more from the company this year. Adding OS33 President Jacob Kazakevich to its Board of Directors, teaming with MSPExcellence and acquiring Bravura Networks were just some of TCI’s major accomplishments last year. And as mentioned, the company plans on picking up steam by launching its North American security and compliance practice within the next month and half. We’ll be tracking the company’s progress throughout 2012.

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In response, Echoworx is now delivering an Echoworx Developer Kit. It is designed to save customers  time and money because they won’t have to develop their own credential management and encryption solutions. That Developer Kit includes sample source code and documentation needed to put a credential management and encryption services into place. If all goes according to plan, the Echoworx cloud environment will be strictly for credential management.

It looks as though Echoworx has been steadily moving toward opening up its cloud environment. Remember, Echoworx already offers its own encryption solution for mobile devices – the Echoworx mobilEncrypt ENDPOINT. And earlier this year, Echoworx partnered with Mformation, an MDM software provider, to include Echoworx’s mobile encryption solution in Mformation’s MDM software solution.

Echoworx is striking while the iron — or in this case, the market — is hot, particularly when it comes to MDM. There is certainly no shortage of MDM software consumer and providers, many of which Echoworx says have been itching for this type of solution.

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In announcing the Numara’s acquisition, BMC said its product portfolio combined with Numara’s, will represent the most comprehensive set of SaaS and on-premise IT management solutions across all business segments. And in the following prepared statement, BMC President of Enterprise Service Management (ESM) Paul Avenant outlined what the acquisition means for current and prospective BMC customers:

“Now BMC can effectively serve the entire spectrum of organizations hungry for IT management with products that truly meet the specific needs of their businesses. Numara’s solutions, customer base and sales and channel partners will round out BMC’s market leadership in Business Service management (BSM), and focus on customer care and support.”

Some rivals are already responding to the move. In a blog post, ManageEngine President Raj Sabhlok took shots at the BMC-Numara combo. ManageEngine also launched a new program, inviting current Numara customers to switch to ManageEngine’s ServiceDesk Plus help desk software solution for free for an entire year. In order to receive the free, one year license, Numara customers have to show proof that they have purchased licenses for either Numara Track-It! or Numara FootPrints. The offer is valid until March 31, 2012.

It’s anyone’s guess how this most recent IT management feud will play out. Both BMC and ManageEngine are claiming the acquisition is a good sign for their businesses, as it opens new marketing opportunities. We do know that for the time being, BMC has increased its customer base and expanded its channel reach by taking over Numara’s current channel partnerships. Time will tel if ManageEngine can stop that momentum with its latest effort to steer both BMC and Numara customers toward ServiceDesk Plus.

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SolarWinds will use EminentWare’s Windows server and workstation patch management solutions to compliment its existing products. The deal comes roughly one month after SolarWinds acquired DameWare Development, which offers remote management software.

Update on User Device Tracker

The EminentWare acquisition comes weeks after SolarWinds released version 2.0 of its User Device Tracker.

“The first version was only designed to identify devices entering company networks. Version 2.0 lets you match specific user information to devices so that you can tell who is doing what with which device,” Castelino explained. “We don’t see a ton of competition for device tracker on the market today.”

SolarWinds and MSPs

But Castelino said that mobile devices are just a piece of the IT puzzle. The issue is being able to manage a broader set of IT-connected devices. It’s an issue that managed IT providers have been struggling with, which is why SolarWinds developed its MSP Program back in November 2011.

“They (MSPs) have been buying our product for years,” Castelino said. “Then they started saying that they would like to market themselves with the SolarWinds brand. So we developed an MSP program to give them tools to help drive their businesses.”

Those tools include marketing materials and instructions on how to best deploy SolarWinds’ technology, among other tools.

“We created the program to let MSPs work with us more easily,” Castelino continued. “They [MSPs] are an important part of our business and face unique challenges today.” Some of the challenges Castelino mentioned included system management and patch management issues. Hence, SolarWinds’ acquisition of EminentWare.

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“If you look at Privacyrights.org‘s figures, you’ll see that there have been more and more data breaches against SMBs since July of last year,” Miliefsky said. ‘The SMB has become the target of 2012.”

There are several reasons why hackers and identity thieves are targeting SMBs more than ever. One is that the cost-reward ratio when hacking into an SMB network is far better than targeting an enterprise company.

• Hackers could steal hundreds of thousands of files and millions of dollars from enterprises, but also face FBI prosecution.
• According to Miliefsky, a hacker can steal anywhere from 500 to 10,000 files from an SMB. But SMBs are less likely to report identity theft or security breaches over fear of losing a business license or getting sued. They’re also less likely to have a team of lawyers representing them, whereas large enterprises likely have legal backing.

So as other NAC solution providers like StillSecure, Juniper Networks and ForeScout offer their solutions to large enterprises, NetClarity has developed a NAC offering to help quell the SMB security crisis, at an SMB price, the company claims.

“We can detect suspicious devices on networks through our agentless solutions. We even offer Active Directory (AD) integration  in our $1,500 appliance,” Miliefsky said. NetClarity’s Nano NAC offering starts at $1,500. The company then charges 25 percent more a year for its cloud-based services like PCI compliance reporting. NetClarity in November 2011 launched an SMB MSSP offering that is now the focal point of its lofty 2012 goals.

So how is NetClarity able to focus on lower price points, according to Miliefsky, when larger NAC providers often sell their solutions for tens of thousands of dollars? Two answers: Outsourcing, and the channel. NetClarity currently has 40 distribution partners in 40 countries, each with groups of engaged resellers. The partners do their own marketing, which saves NetClarity tens of thousands of dollars each year. NetClarity’s cloud services are outsourced to multiple sites. And the company has made it solution as easy to use as possible so that it doesn’t have to have a support staff to handle issues for each of its thousands of customers.

The result of NetClarity’s strategy? The company has grown by over 340 percent over the last five consecutive quarters.

“The high end of our market is the small enterprise,” Miliefsky said. “We’re not interested in moving up the food chain. The smaller you are, the harder you fall. And the smaller you are, the more vulnerable you are.”

Miliefsky is confident NetClarity’s offering can gain even more traction in the SMB managed security services provider sector — an area that many vendors continue to overlook. One potential rival, Bradford Networks, recently folded its dedicated channel team but the company insists it will still work closely with MSPs as partners.

“In our space today, there is no competition,” Miliefsky insisted. “Sometimes we run into the larger players, but nothing else besides that.”

Additional insights from Joe Panettieri.

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CanIt 8.0.12 features a new monitoring capability designed to detect network problems during configuration, like communication errors with LDAP or back-end SMTP servers. If CanIt thinks the problems are severe enough, the anti-spam softwared will automatically send an email alert to network administrators.

The new version of CanIt also lets users reply to archived messages straight from the CanIt web interface, something users couldn’t do in the past. Overall, Roaring Penguin is trying to give its current MSP customers some added value, while reinforcing its partner focus on the SMB sector.

Roaring Penguin is no stranger to the MSP market and partner ecosystem. The company n May 2011 updated its CanIt Archiver email archiving service to integrate with N-Able, Kaseya and LPI Level Platforms. Roaring Penguin’s goal is to have MSPs leverage a hosted CanIt service to provide email protection to for SMB end-users. The company also serves enterprise customers, Internet service providers (ISPs) and the government sector.

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Wavelink and its rivals are striving to help businesses get a handle on the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend. As P.J. Gupta, founder and CEO of Amtel, an MDM provider, told MSPmentor two weeks ago: It’s not good enough to know how many devices are on your network. In order to be protected, companies need to be able to monitor the activity of those devices and make sure employees are following pre-defined mobile device guidelines.

Most MDM software providers are pursuing that business opportunity. When it comes to Wavelink’s TEM business customers they can view and manage telecom and wireless costs on all mobile devices. They can also use the geofencing function to track any device’s location and determine where those devices can be used. Wavelink’s TEM solution can also notify mobile phone users and network admins whenever a device is about to incur an unusually high cost or when they’re about to move outside pre-defined work zones.

Moreover, Wavelink is trying to move beyond basic monitoring and into a TEM offering that provides deeper analysis. To that end, the new Wavelink Avalanche Telicost can churn out reports on how much data individual applications are using — helping IT service providers and customers to respond accordingly.

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Paessler said the biggest improvement involves VMware vSphere 5 support because it addresses ESX 5, Virtual Center 5 and lets users see virtual machines (VMs) located inside of vApps. Plus, mobile browser support is enhanced. According to Paessler Founder and CEO Dirk Paessler, more and more of the company’s customers are already upgrading to vSphere 5 even before Paessler releases support for it.

“They [customers] want the ability to include these systems in their monitoring to ensure system operability,” Paessler said. “PRTG simply grows with their demands.”

On the mobile device side, the new version of PRTG supports the following mobile platforms:

• iOS 3.2
• Android 2.1/Honeycomb,
• BlackBerry 6
• Windows Phone 7
•  WebOS 1.4
• Meego
• Kindle 3
•  Firefox Mobile
• Opera Mobile 11

Over the next two weeks or so, we’ll be interested to hear the feedback PRTG gets from Cisco Live London attendees.

It seems like Paessler has been closely monitoring the mobile device usage trend of its customers and then responding accordingly. In December 2011, the company released its iPRTG 3.0 mobile network monitoring application for all iOS devices with editing, mapping and email capabilities, among other features.

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First, the dollars and cents: Symantec’s year-over-year quarterly revenue rose 7 percent to $1.715 billion. And non-GAAP earnings per share jumped 20 percent — beating most Wall Street expectations. Wall Street didn’t celebrate, however, because Symantec’s long-term growth forecast wasn’t all that impressive.

Read between the lines: As more consumer and corporate IT spending shifts to smart phones and tablets, Symantec will need to build new mobile protection platforms that drive growth. The old bread-and-butter world of Windows protection may actually shrink over the long haul. The evidence: Microsoft concedes Windows sales declined 6 percent in its most recent quarter.

The MSP Hook

Still, Symantec’s current earnings contained news for managed services providers. In a prepared statement, Symantec CFO James Beer said, “Our results were driven by strength in Data Loss Prevention, Authentication, Managed Security Services and Backup. Due to effective cross-selling of our industry leading portfolio, large deals hit an all time high.”

Symantec certainly sells security monitoring, security management, endpoint protection and intrusion prevention services directly to large enterprises. But don’t forget: Symantec in November 2011 took some good steps forward, announcing pricing models and integration plans to work more closely with MSPs. Plus, Symantec has pushed Backup Exec — it’s storage and data-protection platform — beyond the on-premises world. Yes, Backup Exec also lives in the cloud these days.

Symantec’s commitment to MSPs seems to be growing. But competition looms around every corner. McAfee continues to have an extremely close following among MSPs and a strong relationship with Spam Soap, one of the top email security specialists in the MSP market. European upstarts like Maildistiller are making U.S. moves. Plus, Reflexion Networks remains in growth mode with its email security services for MSPs. And folks like Sophos have been adjusting their strategies to embrace MSPs as well.

Bottom line: Competition looms everywhere, but Symantec is crowing about its own managed security services momentum. We’ll see if MSPs embrace the message.

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