ConnectWise, Continuum ‘Finally Starting To Catch Up,’ Kaseya CEO Says

‘I’m glad to see the other companies following Kaseya’s path. We’ve been putting together an integrated platform with all the different functionality that an MSP needs. We’ve been doing it for four years,’ Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola tells CRN.

As even ConnectWise partners acknowledge, there will be some growing pains with the just-announced merger of the company with Continuum. But at the new company’s chief rival, Kaseya, CEO Fred Voccola said he is excited at the prospect of competing with them.

“They’ll struggle for a year or two years and it will be good for us,” Voccola told CRN. “But then it will normalize out. I’m excited for it. I’m glad to see the other companies following Kaseya’s path. We’ve been putting together an integrated platform with all the different functionality that an MSP needs. We’ve been doing it for four years … I’m glad to see our competitors are finally starting to catch up.”

Voccola said when more money and smart people come in to the market it signals you are in the right industry. He said the struggles will come as Continuum and ConnectWise work to integrate their products into a single brand.

“There’s always integration challenges,” he said. “I think they have to figure out what RMM platform are they going to use? Are they going to remain open? What are the things they’re going to do? How are they going to run that business? I think there will be some hiccups early on as there are in every major merger, not an insult to these guys. But I think it’s good for the market. Good for the industry. I’m excited for it.”

The news of the deal was announced by ConnectWise CEO Jason Magee and former Continuum CEO Michael George at ConnectWise’s annual conference, IT Nation, in Orlando. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

As part of the deal, Tampa-based ConnectWise acquired Boston-based Continuum, which are both owned by private equity juggernaut Thoma Bravo. The new company will operate under the ConnectWise brand name.

As competitors, ConnectWise, Continuum and Kaseya have been involved in a years-long arms race for tuck-ins and talent that can differentiate their brand among a field of vendors that offer a range of similar products. Continuum’s CARVIR acquisition immediately leapfrogged their brand to the top of the security discussion at a time when network security was emerging as a threat MSPs of all sizes faced. Then the company doubled down hiring and training more security personnel and eventually boasting four SOC’s in India and the US.

ConnectWise followed announcing an investment in and partnership with Perch, a threat detection and response company later that year. Then, this year Kaseya announced that they had previously purchased the popular documentation tool IT Glue, which users and even competitors have heaped praise upon for its reliability and ease of use.

Now, ConnectWise -- in addition to the merger with Continuum -- is announcing the acquisition of IT Boost, also a documentation tool that will integrate with its software. ConnectWise said the product will greatly increase time savings for MSPs by allowing them to standardize and visualize critical data from a variety of business platforms and services.

“The documentation tool will be particularly valuable when paired with the NOC and SOC from Continuum, providing an easy way for TSPs to access the most up-to-date information needed,” ConnectWise said in a statement.

But Voccola said he is convinced the competition is just trying to play catch up with Kaseya.

“We bought the best. We bought IT Glue, the No. 1 IT documentation product, with 7,500 customers,” he said. “They’re getting ready to buy ITBoost. A little company out of Pakistan. It’s got a couple hundred customers. We have the largest security practice in the MSP space. We bought ID Agent. We have a very, very successful intrusion detection. We have external and internal threat detection from RapidFire Tools. Our security business is about five times as big as the security business at Continuum. It’s good to see that ConnectWise is trying to get that.”