N-able Technologies' Midmarket Partner Program is helping MSPs tear down barriers long associated with providing managed services to that market segment.
N-able's program, announced last May, allows MSPs to place the solution inside a midmarket company's IT infrastructure, long a thorn to service providers trying to sell a hosted solution.
"When I first heard about this program, I thought we'd be competing with N-able but it's been a blessing in disguise," said David D'Arcy, president of Precision IT, a New York-based MSP. "We have decent midmarket opportunities, but previously we were walking away because some of the requirements mandate that it's managed in-house. Now it's a natural opportunity."
Precision IT has landed two midmarket customers and has two more and possibly a third in the pipeline, he said.
D'Arcy's initial fears of selling the product to a midmarket customer and being told to walk away because the customer would want to manage the solution have been unfounded, he said.
"In both of our [wins], they've brought us a sizable deployment fee but we're also managing it on an ongoing basis," he added. "I originally thought they'd want to do it on their own, but we have shown them our value as an MSP and we manage their box in their own environment."
D'Arcy is not alone. In five months, almost 120 MSPs have joined the Midmarket Partner Program, said Frank Colletti, N-able's director of sales. A lot of midmarket IT executives have worked for smaller organizations before and have seen the value of managed services, Colletti said.
"CFOs want to manage their dollars by managing IT more efficiently and gaining more productivity. If these MSPs can be successful, that [end user] can manage 250 desktops with one service desk technician," Colletti said.
"Also from the compliance side, it's forcing midmarket companies to look for solutions to report on helping them become compliant," he added. "It's just managed services gaining traction, opening the eyes of IT people and getting them to say, 'This is something we should really look at.' "
D'Arcy said midmarket companies are becoming more interested in managed services solutions, particularly for asset management and license compliance functionality.
"We can run a report for an enterprise client with 3,500 computers at the end of the year and say, 'You're ready for a [refresh], here's what you need.' They don't have to rely on the procurement department to keep [asset inventory] together," he said. "We show them a report during the sales cycle. That raises an eyebrow for one division, then for another division because it's all within one bundled set."
