February 4, 2019
Acquisition of Managed Workplace comes with add-on deal to resell Avast’s antivirus products
Channelnomics Staff
Barracuda Networks late last week acquired Managed Workplace, a legacy Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tool first developed by Level Platforms and lately owned by Czech-based endpoint security vendor Avast Software. In an e-mail explaining the switch to current Managed Workplace users, Avast officials said the deal also includes an agreement that will see Barracuda reselling a slate of Avast’s Business CloudCare, Management Console, and Antivirus solutions.
The Lowdown: The e-mail, signed by Kevin Chapman, senior vice president of Avast Business, said Managed Workplace would become “a strategic addition to Barracuda’s MSP division, combining a security-centric RMM platform with its existing security portfolio.” The transaction was effective Feb. 1, Chapman wrote. No terms of the deal were disclosed.
The Details: The move gives Barracuda entree into a crowded field of RMM platform providers dominated by the likes of Datto, SolarWinds, Kaseya, Continuum, and ConnectWise, along with more than a dozen second-tier contenders. Barracuda, which has already incorporated Managed Workplace onto its Website, is hinting that it intends to focus on the platform’s security capabilities, which include integrated security assessments, automated patch management, automated asset discovery and inventory management, integrated antivirus deployment and management, and more.
The Impact: Pitching Managed Workplace as a security-centric RMM tightly integrated with Barracuda’s portfolio of security offerings like e-mail security, data protection, and network and applications security wares positions Barracuda to take advantage of the burgeoning managed security service market. MSPs are increasingly looking to add security practices, but lack many of the skills, capabilities, and capacity needed to responsibly and profitably protect their SMB clients.
The global managed security service market is expected to grow from $24 billion last year to more than $47 billion in 2023, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.7 percent, according to industry analyst firm MarketsandMarkets. Small and midsize businesses spent about $11 billion on MSSPs last year and make up the bulk of the segment’s growth worldwide, according to researchers at AMI Partners.
Background: Developed and launched in 2004 by Level Platforms, Managed Workplace was among the first generation of MSP-focused RMM platforms. As managed services expanded in the latter part of the past decade, the tool became popular with MSPs and was considered a market leader. The sale of Level Platforms to security specialist AVG in 2013 and the subsequent sale of AVG to Avast in 2016 — along with a perceived lack of innovation in Managed Workplace and a growing cadre of competitors — ultimately knocked the platform into also-ran status.
The Buzz: “We strongly believe that Barracuda will invest and continue to innovate the Managed Workplace offering, and we see this as the beginning of an important long-term partnership between our two organizations,” Chapman wrote in the partner e-mail. “Avast and Barracuda leadership are working hand in hand to ensure a smooth transition for our existing Managed Workplace partners, as well as employees supporting them.”
