MSP360, formerly known as Cloudberry Lab, this week made available MSP360 Remote Managed Desktop, a standalone version of a remote desktop tool that is included with its data protection offerings.
In addition, the company has launched MSP University, a portal through which it will make available content to advise managed service providers (MSPs) how to run their businesses better.
MSP360 Releases New MSP360 Remote Desktop will be made available for free for at least 90 days, says MSP360 CEO Brian Helwig. After 90 days, MSP360 plans to make MSP360 Remote Managed Desktop available for a flat monthly active user fee of $5, says Helwig.
Multiple IT administrators can share access to the same license as long as they are not using the software at the same time, says Helwig. Administrators can also transfer sessions using the same license while serving a customer, adds Helwig.
“If they need to escalate an issue they can make a hot transfer,” says Helwig.
The company decided to make a standalone version of MSP360 Remote Managed Desktop available because some MSPs wanted to be able to employ it alongside other data protection tools they employ, noted Helwig.
Longer-term, Helwig says the goal is to become the most widely relied on MSP platform. The company claims net new customers for MSP360 Managed Backup Service (MBS) grew 48%nt year over year. During the same period, active MSPs using MBS grew 22% while the number of endpoints grew 11%. Throughout the course of its existence, MSP360 claims to have backed up more than one exabyte of data across 500,000 endpoints.
In general, the downturn on the economy brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be driving more end customers to rely on MSPs for IT services as an alternative to full time IT staff. Preliminary analysis of MSP activity on the MSP360 platform suggests on average MSPs saw an increase of about 500 endpoints being managed in the last year, notes Helwig. In response to that growth, MSP360 has revealed it has doubled the size of its technical support staff in the U.S. over the past nine months.
As demand for managed services continues to increase competition among providers of MSP platforms is naturally increasing. As a result, the cost of delivering managed services is declining, which in turn makes it easier to launch an MSP. It’s not yet clear if the overall size of the MSP community will increase as a result. However, given all the unemployed IT professionals looking for their next opportunity it should not come as a surprise if more than a few of them start their own company.
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