Written by: Myra Snyder, Sr. Mananger, Certifications & Analytics, MSPAlliance
The MSP community has been mulling over ConnectWise’s recent acquisition of Continuum and its meaning for the industry. Many MSPs believe that this acquisition signals a shift toward consolidation for MSP vendors. For the Verified Members, a similar shift may also occur in the email security market.
Market Trends
The graph below shows the usage trends of email security applications for Verified Members since 2016. The most interesting companies in this graph are the 2018 industry leaders: ZixCorp and Barracuda. In 2016, these two applications made up almost 70% of the Verified MSP market. Then, due partially to the growth of the verification program and partly to the introduction of new tools to the market, Barracuda and ZixCorp drop to 40% of the market in 2017. This trend remains about the same in 2018, with Barracuda and Zix collectively gaining back 10% of the market share.
Though the data for 2019 is not final, there are already some exciting trends emerging in this market. Zix has already experienced a 40% growth in Certified Member Usage from 2018 to 2019. However, Zix’s market share could drop from 50% in 2019 as it depends on the usage of other tools, especially Barracuda. Barracuda has also experienced growth in Verified Members usage from 2016 to 2018. Many of the companies that used Barracuda in 2018 have not yet entered the 2019 dataset. Therefore, Barracuda’s market share has room for additional growth.
Email Tool Acquisitions
The majority of the companies in this dataset have been involved in an acquisition within the past two years. Barracuda was acquired by Thoma Bravo and acquired a SaaS provider, PhishLine, in 2018. They also purchased the RMM, Managed Workplace, in 2016. These acquisitions could explain why Barracuda’s market share has remained strong for the past three years. Zix acquired AppRiver in January, which is used by a small percentage of Certified Members. Proofpoint, Sophos, and McAfee also acquired companies this year, Mimecast acquired a company in 2018. Edgewave and TrendMicro were purchased this year, while The Email Laundry was acquired last year. Area 1 is the only company in this dataset that has not yet been involved in any acquisitions.
