If Microsoft is reinventing itself around the cloud, arguably, its most important product is Office 365.
A lesser effort, Windows Azure, is a platform for new and migrated apps, so it doesn’t really replace anything on the Microsoft product list directly. Office 365, however, can replace the full Office suite, as well as server apps such as Exchange and SharePoint. If clients are moving to the cloud, having them do so with your core product line is essential.
Fortunately, Microsoft has an entire third-party ecosystem to help move Office 365.
Kaseya has now moved into this ecosystem with the acquisition of Microsoft partner 365 Command. The company’s eponymously named product helps manage Office 365, and like the product it manages, the newly bought Kaseya tool is also hosted in the cloud.
“365 Command is a simple and affordable hosted service for organizations who want to take command of their Microsoft Office 365 subscription. Users can easily manage and gather data from any device, anywhere. 365 Command replaces the command line interface of Windows PowerShell with a rich, HTML 5 web interface. Your help desk staff will no longer have to run PowerShell scripts for common tasks, saving time and money,” 365 Command argued.
The PowerShell angle is interesting in the context of management. Many providers talk a good story about management, but often offer it a fairly low level in reality.
But, the 365 Command tool, by claiming to replace Microsoft PowerShell scripting completely, is making a pretty bold promise. PowerShell is a command and script-level admin tool that offers deep control of key Windows-based systems.
“365 Command replaces the command line interface of Windows PowerShell with a rich, user-friendly web-based interface, eliminating the need for PowerShell scripting for common management tasks, saving organizations significant time and money. Flexible reporting provides instant visibility into the environment for easy management and decision-making support,” the new partners said.
The 365 Command tool (and company) Kaseya just bought is aimed largely at MSPs and IT shops.
One IT customer is clearly enthused: “I love 365 Command and use the tool frequently,” said Bill Richardson, director of IT at Maverick Funding Corp. “It saves us significant time in administering Office 365. I would be lost without it at this point.”
Microsoft cares about partners such as Kaseya and has the Office 365 Marketplace, where customers can find Office 365 goods.
Kaseya on the Move
Kaseya has been one busy company. Just a while ago the company was bought out by investment firm Insight Venture Partners. Shortly after, Kaseya reached out and bought Zyrion, which provides IT service monitoring and cloud services.
MSP vendors are all about acquisitions and partnering these days, and Kaseya has plenty of both. Its new charge Zyrion also has partnership religion and just struck a deal with New Relic, which does software analytics.
The partnership isn’t just on paper. One joint customer, publishing and marketing company Blurb, is already reaping the rewards, and gaining more visibility into the performance of its private cloud.
Edited by
Blaise McNamee
