Network infrastructure has become as ubiquitous as plumbing or electricity, and it's arguably just as critical. Networking hardware has also become increasingly commoditized. But that doesn't mean there's no room for innovation, and Kaseya is proving that, Marcus Ward, Kaseya's general manager of networking, told ChannelE2E.
"Networking is treated as a utility, like water, electricity, gas, and it's critical -- every business on earth requires it," Ward said. "And for Kaseya, our networking solutions don't shy away from the idea that the hardware piece is highly, highly commoditized. What we focus on is integrating the monitoring and management with all the tools MSPs live in: They manage their solutions via an RMM, via a PSA tool, cybersecurity, whatever the tool is. We're integrating with those tools so you don't have to be a certified networking technician. You don't have to be an expert to be able to take the actions that are needed to deliver a network that's always on and always secure and highly reliable," he said.
Ward said the innovation comes from making Kaseya's integrations, especially with RMMs, seamless, efficient, accessible, reliable and secure for MSPs and not trying to be everything to everyone.
"Especially with Kaseya 365, which has RMM endpoint management and endpoint backup, you can manage our networking solutions directly from your RMM," Ward said. "You don't have to get into the command line of the access point or the switch or the firewall. You see the performance. You see the status. You can command and control right from the RMM. And we not only have that for both of our RMM tools, but we have integrations with AutoTask and BMS, our PSAs, our documentation tools," too.
The value, Ward said, comes less from the highly commoditized networking solutions themselves but through the services and integrations wrapped around them. And, of course, that's where MSPs come in -- and that's the customer profile Kaseya focuses on.
"MSPs are always asked to do more with less. There are always budget pressures. We see that continuing with the current economic cycle. And you know, even though networking is an infrastructure play, people always have to have access. So again, a networking solution that is really built for the MSP is critical," Ward said.
MSPs have different requirements and needs than an enterprise or a consumer; they don't have the massive complexities of a Fortune 500 company, but they also may not have the technical acumen, nor do they have the budget. But that doesn't change the customer's requirement for affordable, reliable, secure networking, Ward said.
"We don't think that MSPs should have to pick commoditized solutions, consumer-grade solutions," Ward said, "Because with the consumer-grade solutions, you have support challenges, warranty challenges, quality challenges. It's a consumer product. So we think that there's an opportunity in the space between the consumer-grade equipment and solutions and the enterprise equipment that is just costly and complex. And we see us fitting in that space very nicely, especially because of the way we tie into the other parts of Kaseya's portfolio. Everybody has an RMM; everybody has a PSA and everybody has documentation. That's really where we're trying to drive hard because networking is a utility. It's not as flashy as the latest security agent that somebody buys or tries to develop and build. Still, I can guarantee there's not a business on earth that can function without network connectivity. So that's really what we try to play."