I spoke with Marco La Vecchia recently, AVG’s vice president of channel sales in North America, and had the opportunity to hear his views on how RMM has changed in 2013 and how it will continue to evolve in coming years. The first thing that struck me during our conversation is that La Vecchia believes the old RMM system is broken and is in the process of changing. I agree with this.
Out with the old way
The three acquisitions this year involving RMM companies has changed this technology segment forever. The old RMM model centered around a monitoring and management platform that heavily relied on partnering with 3rd party vendors in order to augment the RMM capabilities and offer MSPs additional service capabilities is now officially over.
The reason why AVG purchased Level Platforms (and the reason other RMM acquisitions were made in 2013) is because these technologies had begun to stagnate. MSPs (and customers) were demanding more innovation and acquisition was the primary path towards improved technical capability.
The New Way
RMM vendors today must follow the trend started by AVG and acquire technologies and offer them to the MSPs. The obvious benefit of this model will be the technologies will be tightly integrated into the RMM platform, thereby enabling the MSPs to provide a seamless service management experience to the customer.
Yes, the RMM vendors must continue to have an open ecosystem to allow fro maximum choice for MSPs to support different types of vendor relationships. MSPs want and demand options for the types of add on technologies they bring to market. To say those technologies need to be integrated into the RMM is an understatement. But, MSPs want those technologies to be heavily integrated so that it is easier to manage and deliver those services in an efficient manner.
As RMM companies add more and more technologies into their service options, my hunch is that MSPs will lean more heavily towards using those technologies that are owned by the RMM vendor. This is only natural and begs the question of how open these RMM ecosystems will remain.
Innovation through M&A
What appears to be undeniable is that RMM vendors will innovate through acquisition and not through collaboration. The need to own technology will be more pressing than the need to partner with a 3rd party vendor. The more acquisitions these RMM vendors close, the more pressure will be placed on the remaining RMM platforms who have not done their own acquisitions.
AVG is a good example of this acquisition strategy, although they are not the only one. The good news is, AVG and others like them, are pushing the envelope on behalf of MSPs and beginning to innovate again. This is very good for the MSP community.