Barracuda Networks Inc. has acquired the Managed Workplace RMM system from Avast Business in connection with a larger pact between the two vendors that will turn Campbell, Calif.-based Barracuda into the latest integrated suite provider in the managed services software market.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Included in the deal is a multi-year agreement by Barracuda to resell Avast’s MSP-oriented Integrated Antivirus and Integrated CloudCare Antivirus solutions as well as the Standard, Pro, and Pro Plus editions of Avast Business Antivirus.
Those systems, in combination with Barracuda’s existing lineup of BDR solutions and email, network, and application security products, position the vendor to offer MSPs a wide-ranging, security-heavy suite of managed service offerings, and administer them all centrally through an integrated RMM platform.
“We are committed to the MSP marketplace, and acquiring Managed Workplace allows us to offer MSP partners a security-centric RMM solution that incorporates security requirements into a service provider’s daily routine. It complements the security solutions we have introduced via our MSP model, such as email protection, cloud-generation firewalls, and security awareness training,” said Brian Babineau, senior vice president and general manager of Barracuda MSP, Barracuda’s managed services business unit, in a press statement.
“Similar to ensuring that security best practices are woven into end users’ everyday behavior, security needs to become a key component of an MSP’s daily monitoring and management responsibilities,” Babineau continues. An RMM with built-in security functionality, strengthened further by integrations with threat-specific security products, creates a solid foundation on which MSPs can build a managed service offering and, most importantly, improve their clients’ overall security posture.”
Barracuda jump-started its entry into the managed services market in September 2015 though its purchase of BDR vendor Intronis Inc., of Chelmsford, Mass. It dropped the Intronis name in favor of Barracuda MSP in September 2017.
The market for RMM software will reach nearly $800 million by 2022, according to data from AMI-Partners. The larger opportunity for vendors like Barracuda, however, is in managed security. Businesses worldwide will spend over $64 billion on managed and subscription security services in 2019, up roughly 9 percent from 2018, according to Gartner. Barracuda’s agreement with Avast positions it to compete for that business through a growing MSP channel.
Barracuda MSP’s security solution revenue grew 132 percent on a year-over-year basis in 2018.
Long-time MSPs will remember Managed Workplace from its origins with RMM pioneer Level Platforms. Security vendor AVG Technologies bought Level Platforms in June 2013, before agreeing to be acquired itself by Avast Software for $1.3 billion in July 2016. Avast then combined its own security solutions with AVG products and introduced a new Avast Business group in September 2017. Avast Business will continue to serve the SMB security market going forward.
“We believe the best way to serve the small to mid-size business market is to focus 100 percent on our core mission of protecting them against advanced threats and potential losses of data, revenue and reputation caused by cyberattacks,” said Kevin Chapman, general manager of Avast Business, in prepared remarks. “Avast Business is focused on investing in the channel to better serve SMBs with our layered security portfolio. We are fully committed to growing our partner network and working with Barracuda to offer our endpoint security portfolio to a wider MSP base.”
Multiple vendors are currently building out managed services suites and rolling out managed security offerings. In the last year alone, for example, Kaseya Ltd. has expanded its family of MSP offerings through acquisitions of BDR vendor Unitrends Inc., security and compliance vendor RapidFire Tools, cloud-to-cloud backup vendor Spanning, and documentation vendor IT Glue.
Just over two months ago, ConnectWise unveiled ambitious plans of its own to assemble a comprehensive, interconnected ecosystem of affordably-priced security solutions, largely from third-party software makers, that MSPs can manage through ConnectWise’s portfolio of management products.
Two months before that, SolarWinds MSP launched the new SolarWinds Threat Monitoring Service Program, which connects users of its Threat Monitor threat detection, response, and reporting solution with authorized Threat Monitoring Service Providers capable of operating that system on an outsourced basis.
Three months further back, meanwhile, in June of last year, master MSP Continuum acquired managed endpoint detection and response vendor CARVIR and launched its Continuum Managed Security portfolio.
Managed services vendors aren’t the only ones eyeing the burgeoning managed services and managed security opportunities hungrily. Both Kaseya and Continuum are owned by private equity investors, as was SolarWinds MSP until its parent company’s IPO in October. Private equity firm Thoma Bravo, the former owner of SolarWinds, bought Barracuda roughly a year ago.
Datto Inc., another of today’s biggest names in managed services, doesn’t currently offer security products, though its BDR solutions can play a role in layered data protection strategies.
ChannelPro will have additional reporting on today’s Barracuda/Avast deal based on interviews with executives from both companies, next Monday.
