While news about Kaseya’s new all-in-one Kaseya 365 license dominated the headlines this week, MSP Success wants to make sure you didn’t miss some of the other industry news from SaaS Alerts, Pax8, Ntiva, and more.
Products
SaaS Alerts’ MSP Shield Initiative Allows All MSPs To Use The Product Internally For Free
SaaS Alerts CEO Jim Lippie believes that the company’s new MSP Shield initiative launched this week will both better protect the MSP community and lead to more MSPs adopting its SaaS security platform.
With MSP Shield, MSPs can use SaaS Alerts on their own tenants for a year to monitor a wide range of SaaS applications, including their RMM software and key operational tools like IT Glue, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox, Slack, Salesforce, Okta, and Duo, with ScreenConnect.
“When we started SaaS Alerts, we always said that MSPs can’t protect their customers if they can’t protect themselves first. So anyone that’s ever paid for SaaS alerts, they get to protect their own environment for free,” Lippie tells MSP Success.
Now, with MSP Shield, any MSP around that globe that is not a current partner can use SaaS Alerts internally. “We want to do everything we possibly can to better protect the security of the entire MSP community, and we can do that through MSP Shield,” Lippie says. “Now, the added benefit for us is that about 60% of MSPs that try our product will leverage it for their customers. So making this investment in the community we feel will positively impact our overall growth.”
MSPs that take advantage of the program will “have full access to our video library as well as what we call KBs, knowledge-based articles. And they’ll also have a single point of contact at SaaS Alerts as well that will essentially guide them if there’s any issues.”
Lippie says that most MSPs are clearly a lot more secure than the average small business. “We find very few instances of situations that go wrong, specifically in 365 for an MSP. But we’ve also found is that by monitoring the RMMs, that’s a big advantage for the MSP, to be able to know what is going on inside your RMM and what your users are doing, creating scripts, things of that nature. … Being able to spot and recognize a supply chain attack on an RMM. That’s a big deal. People should want to do that automatically.”
As for how long this one-year free use will be available, Lippie says, “We’ll make a determination probably in six months or so after it’s had enough time to roll out and we see how it goes and make some determinations then. But our intention is to make sure that this is something that we’re able to provide to the community for a long period of time.”
Mosyle Launches Apple Device Management And Security For MSPs
Mosyle, maker of the Apple Unified Platform, has launched Mosyle Fuse MSP, which combines mobile device management, endpoint security, internet privacy and security, identity management, and application management in one solution designed for MSPs. Mosyle Fuse MSP builds on Mosyle Fuse, which debuted less than two years ago for enterprises and educational institutions.
Features of Mosyle Fuse MSP include MSP-level management for general profiles and policies across all current and new customers. In addition, MSPs can manage customers individually, including Apple Push Certificate, IdP integrations, or profiles such as VPN, Microsoft Exchange, and others. Mosyle Fuse MSP also includes centralized, automated billing with individualized reporting.
According to the company, Mosyle is offering commissions of up to 100% for the first year of new MSP customers. Mosyle will also refund the cost of the Apple Consultants Network annual fee in the form of a credit for future Mosyle Fuse MSP licenses.
People
Pax8 Appoints Scott Chasin As New CEO
Pax8 appointed Scott Chasin CEO on May 1, effective immediately, succeeding founder and CEO John Street. Street will continue as chairman of the board.
Chasin has served as Pax8’s CTO since 2021, leading its roadmap. Last year, Chasin unveiled the future of Pax8’s Marketplace for partners and vendors. Chasin is a serial entrepreneur with over 30 years of leadership experience. He has founded and led multiple successful technology startups, including USA.NET, MX Logic, and ProtectWise.
Acquisitions
Ntiva Acquires The Purple Guys
Ntiva has acquired The Purple Guys, an MSP providing services across the Central and Southern U.S., from Kian Capital Partners, a lower-middle-market-focused private investment firm. This merger establishes one of the largest pure-play MSPs servicing small and midsize businesses and non-profit organizations in the U.S.
The Purple Guys (TPG) was founded in 1994 and is led by CEO Kevin Cook, CTO Jon Katz, and COO Holly Lawrence. Kian, along with its co-investor ParkSouth Ventures, made its initial investment in the company in January 2020 with a majority recapitalization and merger of Enterprise Computing Services (ECS) and My IT. In 2021, ECS / My IT completed the acquisitions of The Purple Guys and Network Technologies and subsequently rebranded to The Purple Guys.
With Kian’s backing, the company completed 10 strategic acquisitions, and more than tripled both revenue and EBITDA. The Purple Guys expanded operations from one market to eight offices across six states and grew its employee base by more than four times.
“We are excited to welcome TPG into the Ntiva family,” said Steven Freidkin, CEO of Ntiva, in a press statement. “Our joint commitment and purpose of growing each other remains stronger than ever, as we set new benchmarks in the MSP sector.”
Investments
Apptega Raises $15 Million
Apptega, an end-to-end cybersecurity compliance platform company, has raised $15 million in growth capital comprised of third-party debt and growth equity from Mainsail Partners, a growth equity firm that invests in fast-growing software companies.
The investment will go toward development of its continuous security and compliance platform for MSPs, MSSPs, and MDR companies. The company’s solution enables these service providers to provide real-time security and compliance scoring to clients in a way that satisfies industry and regulatory requirements.
“While many companies offer compliance software, few if any have considered the very specific needs of managed service providers, who must address a wide breadth of client challenges simultaneously and clearly demonstrate the value of often hard to quantify security services,” said Dave Colesante, Apptega CEO, in a press statement.
In recent months, the company has added security experts with deep experience in high-performing managed services companies to its leadership team to help inform its product vision.
Company Launches
LastPass Completes Separation from GoTo
Password and identity management solution provider LastPass completed its planned separation from parent company, GoTo (formerly known LogMeIn). LastPass will operate as an independent company under LMI Parent, L.P., a holding entity of the existing shareholder group.
As part of this move, LastPass recently appointed new chief product, chief marketing, and chief information officers, each of whom are veterans in the industry.
The financial plan includes continued investment in technology and research and development to help LastPass continue to meet the varied needs of consumers and businesses worldwide. In addition, LastPass has invested in establishing a dedicated threat intelligence team.
LastPass is owned by private equity sponsors Francisco Partners and Elliott Management.
Partnerships
CrowdStrike and AWS Extend Strategic Partnership
Amazon Web Services and CrowdStrike are extending their strategic partnership. As part of the partnership, Amazon has unified its cybersecurity protection on the CrowdStrike Falcon platform, protecting the company from code to cloud and from device to data. Amazon is replacing a variety of cloud point products with Falcon Cloud Security, is using Falcon Next-Gen SIEM to secure big data logging, and is deploying Identity Threat Detection and Response to prevent identity-based attacks. In addition, CrowdStrike is expanding its use of AWS services, including Amazon Bedrock and AWS SageMaker, to drive innovation in cloud security, SIEM transformation, and novel cybersecurity AI use cases.
