Ipswitch Aims Latest Wares At MSPs
The Lexington, Mass.-based software maker on Tuesday introduced WhatsUp Gold Version 11 Premium and Standard editions, which are geared to attract MSPs looking to use WhatsUp Gold as a primary or secondary network monitoring platform, said Gary Shottes, vice president of sales at Ipswitch.
With Version 11, WhatsUp Gold has become much easier to use, according to Shottes. Last year, MSPs spent time and money grappling with popular but complex MSP platforms, and Ipswitch sees WhatsUP Gold Version 11 as an opportunity to offer a user-friendly alternative, he said.
"We believe this is the year of conversion from MSP hype to reality," Shottes said.
Already a multitenant remote monitoring platform, the new version of WhatsUp Gold brings an enhanced, Web-based interface that incorporates Jscript technology and Ajax to deliver faster performance plus a better look and feel, said Ennio Carboni, director of product management at Ipswitch.
"Already we have seen an increasing number of companies who have standardized on HP [OpenView] or CA [Unicenter] coming to us and saying, 'The systems are great but too complex,' " Carboni said.
WhatsUP Gold Version 11 also includes a wide range of customizable reports and user personalization tools, as well as support for IPv6, he added.
Al Andrus, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Delta CompuTec, a solution provider in Teterboro, N.J., has a customer running an earlier version of WhatsUp Gold alongside a full-blown HP OpenView implementation because WhatsUp enables certain monitoring and reporting tasks to be performed much faster.
"For the cost of WhatsUp, you can't beat it," Andrus said, adding that WhatsUp also scales up to handle large IT networks. "We have another customer using WhatsUp in a 60,000-seat environment."
BEK Communications, an Ipswitch partner in Steele, N.D., uses WhatsUp as its primary SNMP network monitoring tool, said Mark Harsma, network engineer. "It's a lifesaver," he said.
WhatsUp Gold Version 11 carries a starting price of between $1,995 and $6,995, depending on the edition and the number of devices, according to Carboni.