Autotask has agreed to sell VARStreet, an e-commerce platform company purchased in May 2010 back to a group of VARStreet employees for an undisclosed amount.
VARStreet will once again operate as an independent company run by the VARStreet veterans, Shankar Gopalan, Shiv Agarwal and Vikas Bhir, buying back the company. They are backed by private investors, according to Autotask.
Mark Cattini, CEO of Autotask, said VARStreet, acquired by his predecessor Bob Godgart, did not fit in with Autotask's core business and the employees were interested in buying it back.
"It's fundamentally not what we do. There's not anything we add to the customer experience," Cattini said. "Being part of an independent organization, they can focus on nothing but that part of VARStreet. It's the same team that built and ran the product [under Autotask]."
Autotask structured the sale to ensure that VARStreet users see no change in service, catalogs, add-ons or customizations. End user data will not be moved or at risk during the process, according to Autotask.
Cattini said VARStreet business was "strong [and] stable" under Autotask and the product was improved during the year and a half that Autotask owned the business.
"The operation ran essentially like it did before we acquired them. Our decision was really based on what we think is better for our customers and ourselves frankly," Cattini said. "You've got three people running that business and they're more than happy and excited to run the business."
Meanwhile, Autotask plans more improvements in its own professional services automation platform for 2012, Cattini said. This year, Autotask expanded the platform to Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers and the company's open-platform strategy will continue next year, he said.
"One of the things we think it's really important to show is we're open. We're a SaaS offering, open at the front end, and multi-browser [capable]. We're open in the middle, configurable in terms of how our clients want to work with Autotask. We're also open at the back end," Cattini said. "If you're a quoting [application] vendor, an RMM vendor, a security vendor, our core competency is being that open platform. We don't want to dictate what technologies our customers should or shouldn't use."
Cattini's comments are a not-so-veiled dig at arch rival ConnectWise, which has raised eyebrows by making investments in several vendors including quoting tool Quosal. But ConnectWise has also said it's not pushing MSPs to choose vendors and its APIs are also open.
"My view of our friends down south is our strategy is about being open. If there was no ConnectWise, this would still be our strategy. We're looking to build really deep partnerships across the industry and give [customers] choice," Cattini said.
