Bigger, Faster … Better? Under Magee, ConnectWise Looks to Maintain Dominance in a Channel It Helped Build
… the constantly-evolving IT landscape.
“I think someone needs to rethink how the RMM product will adapt to deal with the change,” Van Iderstine says. “Despite the promise of Automate being the central management tool, we still have a ton of tools to manage those separately. I feel for Automate to be/remain relevant there will need to be thought given to how organizations will manage this different, more complex environment.”
As partners always do, the ConnectWise channel has an endless string of suggestions. Automate should embrace these third-party tools and find a way to integrate them. The knowledge base and document management need work, as do the reporting functions, customer portal and network detection capabilities. There’s a demand for self-service, support teams rather than dedicated account managers and, above all, more responsiveness in higher-tier support.
Still, ConnectWise’s customers are by and large effusive about the results of the solutions, if not the details of how they’re rolled out and supported. In reporting for this story, partner after partner specifically attributed their MSPs’ growth to its products.
Lynn Souza, CEO of Kyber Security, says ConnectWise has a direct part to play in the exponential growth that’s landed her MSP on the Inc 5000 for the last three years running.
It has also become an essential part of DP Solutions’s operations, says the MSP’s CEO Karyn Schell, who praises ConnectWise for anticipating the needs of managed service providers and being nimble enough to pivot when those needs evolve.
Provider CBM Technology grew more than 25% during the first three years after its adoption of the ConnectWise suite. Tye Miller, vice president and COO, says that the ConnectWise products are fully responsible.
Center for Computer Resources’ Hicks likens it to “printing money,” and boasts that he coined the phrase “If it’s not in ConnectWise, it didn’t happen!” ConnectWise still uses this line, and Hicks swears that Arnie Bellini will testify that it originated with him.
The praise, proof points and partner anecdotes are never-ending. Every solution provider has issues, especially in an industry as fast-paced as managed IT services. But few of them can point to such a vast channel community that freely and frequently sings its praises.
‘Overdue Realignment’
Bellini, who retains an active and engaged seat on ConnectWise’s board, and Magee admit that the company was long overdue for a re-alignment of its products. In the same breath that it announced the buyout in late February, ConnectWise publicly laid out a …