Silverback Adding Desktop Tools to MSP Offering
Al Gossett, president of Digital-DNS, a Silverback partner in Greensville, S.C., said he expects to have the beta version of the new desktop tools in-house for testing by next week. The upgrade will make the Silverback platform more profitable to use, he said.
Up to now, the Silverback MSP platform has leveraged standard Windows network utilities to perform basic levels of desktop management, said Jonathan Wolf, vice president of product marketing at Silverback, Billerica, Mass. When the new features are released to all of Silverback's customers in mid-July, a more granular level of desktop management will be available.
The mid-July release will deliver improved desktop monitoring capabilities as well as an expanded deck of default policies for monitoring desktop clients - policies that will enable Silverback partners to quickly deploy managed desktop services based upon common operational baselines, explained Wolf. Support for dynamic IP addressing will also arrive then, he said.
Then in the October time frame, Silverback will introduce features to its desktop support menu that include automated scripting, and agent-based mobile client support that includes patch management and scripting tools for PCs that operate outside the internal network environment, he said.
The new desktop features were added after Silverback recognized that it was not as strong as it could be in terms of desktop support, an MSP familiar with the new desktop features said.
The new features will "benefit us in many ways," said Digital-DNS' Gossett. "It will benefit our current (MSP) client base, and increase revenue there. And give us one tool to use to extend further down into the desktop."
Wright Business Technologies, a Houston-based Silverback partner, has also been chosen to beta test the new desktop features, said Jennifer Wright, vice president.
The desktop tools from Silverback will start at $118 per client, with volume discounts, said Wolf.