SMB Sector Maturity…

We’re starting to see the SMB community enter mid-life with obvious signs of maturity. This includes MSP mergers, growth by acquisition and partnering. We’re also seeing SMB ISVs and OEMs do more business with each other. Here is what I mean.

Today Virtual Administrator announced that it has teamed with Live Virtual Help Desk to provide 24/7 help desk services to the SMB MSP community. Both are reputable players who are presenting a “better together” message to the community with this announcement. My take? This is another in what will be a long stream of such announcements coming out of the recession into recovery. There will be teaming scenarios, partnerships and even some M&A. So hang on fast! Here is the announcement from Virtual Administrator and Live Virtual Help Desk this morning.

Virtual Administrator and Live Virtual Help Desk form a “Virtually” Perfect Fit.

Virtual Administrator, the premier MSP On-ramp for growing IT Service organizations, has selected Live Virtual Help Desk (LVHD) as the exclusive provider of 24x7 Help Desk services for its community of growing MSP partners.

“After researching what was available in the market, we chose the good people at Live Virtual Help Desk for several reasons”, mentions Rich Forsen, CEO of Network Depot, the parent company of Virtual Administrator. “First, the people – we’ve heard wonderful feedback about the level of effort LVHD has put forth in support of its existing clientele. Second, their willingness to work with our existing tier one partners like SpamSoap, Intronis, SonicWALL and Kaseya in making sure that their help desk services include understanding of the tools we provide for our MSP partners, and finally, their support of our “Value Included Program (VIP)” philosophy – all Virtual Administrator offerings are supported by our technical and training staff without additional charge to our partners.”

Virtual Administrator’s name has long been associated with helping people transition into Managed Services using the Kaseya platform, initially through its own Hosted Kaseya server farm, and now on Kaseya’s SaaS platform through its partnership in the Kaseya On-Demand Partner Program. Once the Kaseya NOC services are available for SaaS partners, both Virtual Administrator and Live Virtual Help Desk will be prepared to integrate seamlessly.

This agreement also establishes Virtual Administrator as the exclusive Master MSP for Live Virtual Help Desk.   Partners that contact Live directly and are qualified as people who would benefit from Virtual Administrator’s on-ramp services will be routed through Virtual Administrator’s program.

“Virtual Administrator’s well-earned reputation as the best path to go through for emerging MSPs is why we felt so comfortable signing on with them in such an exclusive way,” says Neil Jones, President of Live Virtual Help Desk. “The VIP treatment their community receives is exactly the kind of handling we want people to associate with our brand as well, and we look forward to supporting VA partners and introducing MSPs to the Virtual Administrator process and tool set. It makes perfect sense from our perspective. The better MSPs do, the more they will need our services, and Virtual Administrator has an established track record of helping MSPs do better. Additionally, when you consider the work we’ve already done with Kaseya and Kaseya’s NOC team it makes perfect sense for us to be working with such Kaseya veterans.”

The two “Virtuals” expect to do a series of events together to inform the channel on both the business aspects of using helpdesk services and the best practices in doing so.

Virtual Administrator and Live Virtual Helpdesk – Virtually perfect together.