Seeing a strong opportunity for the channel community in growing a managed services business but knowing there can often be barriers to entry for smaller partners, The Ascii Group has partnered with <a href="http://www.kaseya.com" target="_blank" Kaseya to bring the vendor’s managed services platform to its members.
The Ascii Group has branches in the U.S., Canada, the UK and India. It’s a paying community of independent computer resellers that provides its members with tools, products and services to help them grow their business. Ascii services over 2,000 resellers, with over 220 members in Canada.
Ascii Canada president Alan Miller said the MSP Fuel offering, offered in partnership with managed services vendor Kaseya, has been well received in the U.S. and they see a strong market for it in Canada as well.
“A lot of Canadian resellers are on the fence when it comes to managed services,” said Miller. “A lot have their own products they build in-house, but the early costs of getting involved with a Kaseya or a Level Platforms is a challenge. Adoption of managed services is still a very large opportunity in Canada. MSP Fuel is targeted to help all Canadian VAR’s make the transition into managed services without any upfront expenditure.”
The MSP Fuel offering is powered on the backend by Kaseya and offers Ascii members a pay-as-you-go model for building a managed services business. Ascii Group president Jerry Koutavas said it’s an easy way for resellers and VARs wondering how they can get into managed services to get used to the product.
“In beta, there’s no cost so Ascii members can get their feet wet without spending any money as they try to move their clients to a recurring revenue model,” said Koutavas. “It has a very rich feature-set and it’s getting a lot of positive reviews from resellers.”
Ascii will be at the forefront of marketing the offering to its membership, with Kaseya handling the backend billing and technical support. While partners can work directly with Kaseya, Koutavas said Ascii has developed the MSP Fuel offering with unique features and support for its members.
“What we’ve built over the years is a real community,” said Koutavas. “We have members sharing best practices with fellow members on what’s the best approach and offering in crafting a managed services strategy. Much of the value is based on the community Ascii has built.”
Ascii Canada’s Miller adds MSP Fuel will help the group get the word out to more Canadian resellers about its offerings and the support and benefits it can offer to independent computer resellers.
“This allows us to go after them and bring them into the Ascii family,” said Miller. “We can go into the wider managed services market and make sure they’re aware of Ascii.”