SBSC & MSP Buzz

Level Platforms and Microsoft are Building Bridges

I’m often asked about why we (Charlotte Tech Care Team) choose Level Platforms (LPI) as our platform for delivering managed services.  “Isn’t Kaseya better?”, I often hear?  The truth be told, YES, Kaseya has a better MSP product than LPI’s current release.  But another truth is that  these products (Kaseya and Onsite Manager) are just technologies,  and technology changes fast.  Don’t believe me?  Just go ahead and blink.  ;-)  

What doesn’t happen quite as fast is the forging of good strategic partnerships that allow companies with evolving technologies to leverage one another and deliver a better overall solution.  Such is the case with Microsoft and LPI.  The first hint of the deepening relationship was announced this past spring at Xchange in San Diego with the launch of MSP Partners where Cisco, LPI, Autotask, Microsoft and Intel formed an “alliance” centered around their interests in the exponentially growing MSP market.   Now it seems that LPI and MS are taking their partnership even higher by teaming up to allow LPI’s Onsite Manager to integrate with Microsoft’s Systems Center Essentials (SCE) to deliver what promises to be even more robust managed services capability very similar to the way Intel did with the V-Pro and LPI.   This new partnership also stops them from competing in the same SMB space.  It seems both partners recognize their strength’s and weaknesses.

My hat’s off to LPI’s Peter Sandiaford and MS’s Bob Muglia for having the vision to use partnership vs competition to deliver a layered, expandable and solid MSP platform that considers the needs of MSPs serving small businesses.  I believe this will truly be a win-win-win with the third win being us (are you listening Paul?). 

So where does this leave Kaseya with their sleek and powerful script-leveraging client-based solution?  I’m not sure, but from a technical view, I expect that since SCE and Onsite Manager are both built on a centralized architecture, Kaseya may have some serious challenges to face.  But then again, those are just technical challenges.  I think their biggest risk may actually be becoming a third wheel in the MS and LPI partnership.  Not exactly where I would want my vendor (or partner) to be…  So whey do we stay with LPI?  You tell me. 

Learn more about what Bob Muglia is working on with DSI here.