Antivirus technology manufacturer AVG has announced that is has purchased remote monitoring and management (RMM) technology maker Level Platforms. Terms of the acquisition were not made public. The acquisition puts AVG squarely in the center of the managed services universe with both a RMM platform and its cloud hosted security suite CloudCare.
"We've made this acquisition for a variety of reasons", said Luke Walling, vice president of sales and operations for AVG. "One of the most important is our commitment to listen closely to the needs of you, our partner. Since its release, many of you have asked us to add fully-integrated RMM features and functionality to AVG CloudCare™. This acquisition reaffirms our commitment to providing features and functions you've requested, leveraging mature, industry-leading technology to do so."
What does this mean for the MSPs?
Since its launch last year, CloudCare has been aimed squarely at the managed service provider market. Primarily targeting MSPs serving small and medium sized business, CloudCare was designed to provide MSPs with a hosted platform from which they can centrally manage many aspects of the customer's security needs. The CloudCare platform, however, did not fully extend into providing all the necessary elements that a full fledged RMM platform would have provided. Now, AVG has a fully built RMM platform in Level's Managed Workplace that presumably will be integrated with CloudCare to provide MSPs and customers with a complete security and RMM package that works seamlessly together.
Impact for the RMM Community
Since the recent news of RMM company N-able being purchased by SolarWinds, I said that the other RMM companies would begin to feel pressure to innovate in order to remain competitive. I also alluded to the fact that other RMM acquisitions would likely be happening since the RMM platforms would not be able to innovate and invest heavily without some form of capital infusion. It seems that analysis was accurate.
Since the early days of managed services when N-able, SilverBack (now owned by Dell), and Oculan (sold years ago after their funding was cut by investors) where the primary leaders in the RMM space, innovation in the RMM space has largely come from one off relationships with third parties. The RMM platforms became centralized hubs for MSPs to take aggregated IT management technologies and effectively manage their customers.
Now, with two fairly significant RMM acquisitions, the remaining RMM platform vendors like Continuum (formerly Zenith Infotech), Kaseya, Labtech, and others, will presumably be more likely to be acquired since the pace at which both SolarWinds and AVG will be investing into these technologies will likely be fierce.
Analysis
This is exactly what the managed services profession needed. These two acquisitions should shake up our community and provided much needed innovation and consolidation of tools so MSPs can do their jobs more efficiently and effectively. We haven't seen any meaningful innovation within the RMM community for some time now. AVG and SolarWinds will change this!
- AVG now owning Managed Workplace will have access to the LPI network of MSPs
- Managed Workplace MSPs can now access a fully built and in-house owned security suite in CloudCare
- Future innovation from AVG will apply equally to the A/V customers as well as the acquired MSPs
To summarize, AVG has now fully entered the managed services ring and intends to not only stay, but to be a competitive player. I for one am very happy today as this acquisition is very good news for a community that has been lying dormant for too long. Exciting days ahead!
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