Today’s announcement about Autotask’s acquisition by Vista Equity Partners has great importance beyond just the news of the transaction itself. As I wrote last year when the remote monitoring and management (RMM) companies went through their own wave of M&A activity, I had wrote that two other managed services specific sectors would likely be next: one sector was storage and the other was the PSA community. It looks like my prediction was correct.
The announcement does not go into great detail about the transaction, but there are some assumptions we can make about this deal which are based on previous M&A transactions within the RMM community. Here are some of my predictions about the Autotask deal and what it will mean for both the PSA community and the larger managed services profession.
No Integration Headaches
Because Autotask is not being acquired by another technology firm (similar to how Kaseya was acquired by a private equity firm) there should be no “integration” issues. Whenever two technology companies combine, there is always the need for integration, and the results are not always favorable to the MSPs. Just ask Dell MSPs about some of those acquisitions and you’ll understand.
Autotask should have a fairly quick integration period and be able to begin executing on their new model, whatever that may be.
Pressure on PSA Community
There has been a long period of stagnation within the PSA community and the Autotask deal is hopefully going to signal a new period of innovation. The PSA technology is often (and correctly) viewed as one of the central technological platforms upon which a managed services (and cloud computing) provider runs their business. When any technology vendor sits for too long without innovation (this could be due to lack of new leadership and lack of resources) the channel community they service starts to get restless. This is precisely what was happening in the RMM community before they consolidated.
The real interesting thing to watch is going to be how ConnectWise, TigerPaw, and other PSA vendors respond to this news. Naturally, there could be two major ways in which the community could respond: 1) the remaining PSA vendors could begin reinvesting in their platforms, or 2) they could seek out their own M&A exit strategies. What do I think will happen? I think the remaining PSA vendors have seen the lessons learned from their RMM counterparts and will begin looking for exit strategies.
It’s still too early to know what precisely will happen so all of what I’m writing is largely speculative. However, based on earlier analysis of the RMM M&A consolidation, I believe that we are in store for a very exciting 2H for 2014. And, let’s not forget we could very likely see a similar M&A wave hit the backup and storage vendors as well.