By now, most of you have heard that IT management technology vendor SolarWinds is going to purchase Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) platform vendor N-able Technologies for a deal reportedly worth $120 million. I immediately had a number of questions about how such a deal might impact the managed service provider community and the customers they service. So, I went right to the source to have my questions answered. This morning I had the opportunity to speak with SolarWinds CEO Kevin Thompson and N-able CEO Gavin Garbutt.
First, it sounds like SolarWinds will be keeping the N-able technology (N-central) and the core management team, which is an important point I’ll get you later. Kevin Thompson phrased the search that ultimately lead to the N-able acquisition as a 5-6 year examination of the managed services profession, always keeping an eye on which technology vendors were making progress with advancing the technology, as well as cultivating success with their MSPs. I got the feeling that SolarWinds wanted to make sure the managed services community was headed in the right direction before they made any moves.
Second, and understandably, Mr. Thompson believes that N-able was pulling ahead of the the competition and offered the best opportunity, both for customers as well as the MSPs. There is an undeniable understanding from SolarWinds that acquiring a RMM platform and their MSP channel was an important objective for the company, both technically and in terms of understanding how to do certain things like sell cloud services, which Thompson admitted they did not know how to do. And, who can argue that N-able doesn’t have both of those; N-able is one of the longest standing RMM vendors who have actively been selling into MSPs for over a decade.
Now, let’s look at what this deal means for managed services firms and the rest of the RMM vendors. I think the best deal to use as a comparison is the Dell acquisition of SilverBack. As I’ve said in the past, Dell purchased SilverBack (in my opinion) primarily for their technology, and the MSP channel they inherited was more of an afterthought. Here, SolarWinds clearly had an interest to tapping into a MSP channel base primarily to service the SMB customers. SolarWinds also gets a staff who knows the ins and outs of selling to MSPs. This is also very important for the SolarWinds strategy moving forward. Naturally, there were some technical gaps N-able will be able to fill for SolarWinds but I think the biggest advantage coming out of this deal is the amount and pace of innovation.
In my opinion, RMM platform vendors have not been innovating at a fast pace lately. This is mostly due to lack of capital resources; most RMM vendors spend their resources on marketing and sales. This is quite natural. However, the innovation that has taken place has been achieved mostly by the RMM vendor working with OEM companies to fill gaps, instead of developing these capabilities themselves. This deal will put N-able on a fast track of R&D that will force the other RMM vendors to keep pace.
I am not suggesting that there will be a rapid departure from other RMM vendors to N-able; there are well known internal costs and issues with ripping out and replacing RMM platforms. Any MSP that has done this can tell you how difficult it can be. This acquisition will put pressure, however, on the rest of the RMM community to remain competitive. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some other RMM companies acquired in the next 12 months as a result of this deal.
On the whole, I think this acquisition is good for the managed services community. It forces MSPs and vendors alike to re-evaluate things, and that is not a bad thing at all.
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