ITBOOST Inc. has launched an initiative aimed at grabbing market share for its managed services documentation software that includes reduced pricing, free 30-day trials, no-fee onboarding, and a new data migration utility.
The Irving, Texas-based company will formally announce the aggressive moves during the ConnectWise IT Nation Connect partner event in Orlando next week in conjunction with the release of a major update to its flagship solution. They are designed to drive adoption of ITBOOST’s software by both newcomers to documentation software and users of competing solutions, including market leader IT Glue.
Version 1.0 of ITBOOST’s product became generally available a year ago. The company has used the intervening months to verify that the system is fully equipped to meet MSP requirements, according to CEO Ali Peracha. With the release of version 3.0 next week, he continues, ITBOOST is set to begin prioritizing customer acquisition.
“We wanted to make sure that the partners have tested the product,” Peracha says. “Now that we’re ready, we’re going in full blown, head on, with our competitors.”
ITBOOST’s solution includes modules for documentation, password management, customer feedback, and business intelligence. Under the new pricing scheme, Basic tier subscriptions, which cover documentation only, run $17 per user per month. The Plus tier, which adds functionality for collecting customer feedback among other features, costs $27 per user a month. The top-tier Premium plan, which includes password management and business intelligence as well, costs $37 per user per month.
Discounted rates are available for MSPs who purchase a yearly subscription. Buyers who prepay for a year of service get steeper price cuts still.
According to Peracha, ITBOOST’s new fee structure makes it the most cost-effective solution of its kind available. “We’re offering the lowest total cost of ownership in the industry with the pricing that we’ve put in,” he says.
Also debuting with version 3.0 of ITBOOST are multiple benefits designed to make evaluating and switching to the system simpler and less expensive. Those include free 30-day trial subscriptions and free self-serve onboarding.
“[That’s] huge for these partners, because now they don’t have to put money in when they’re coming in to test the system,” Peracha says.
Onboarding assistance from ITBOOST experts, as well as technician training for the system, are now available to buyers as well on a fee-for-service basis.
To make replacing an existing documentation environment with ITBOOST simpler, the company has also introduced a new migration tool that imports documents, attachments, knowledge base articles, and other items automatically. Fee-based help with data migration is now available as well, as are integration and configuration services. Only a small portion of ITBOOST’s customer base had access to customization support in the past.
“We were doing that for a very controlled amount of customers before, but now it’s going to be available for all MSPs,” Peracha says.
Version 3.0 of ITBOOST’s software features a completely re-modeled user interface architected for easier navigation. “That helps the partners get information much faster than they did before,” Peracha says. “The faster they can resolve an issue, the happier the customer is, and the more profitable the MSP is.”
The new UI also comes with a black background “dark mode” designed to put less strain on the eyes of technicians working overnight.
Other significant enhancements include unlimited field-by-field revision control functionality that automatically tracks changes throughout the system and lets users revert settings to any previous point in time. Revision monitoring was available exclusively for passwords in version 2.0 of ITBOOST.
A granular permission feature in the new release allows partners to control who can view, update, and delete data on a user-by-user basis, and assign tightly-defined permissions to customers who access the system remotely as well.
Other vendors of documentation software include Passportal Inc., of Calgary, Alb., and Vancouver, B.C.-based IT Glue. The latter company, which is the market’s biggest name, had 5,000 MSP customers supporting 500,000 businesses as of September. Price, though, has been a common complaint among users, according to company CEO Chris Day.
“We get blown up on Reddit all the time about pricing,” said Day in a conversation with ChannelPro during IT Glue’s GlueCon partner event in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Day added that while he had no plans to cut prices, IT Glue would soon introduce roughly a dozen policy changes aimed at enhancing customer value and increasing customer satisfaction. Several of those measures, including the ability to purchase licenses in quantities less than five and to buy online without assistance from a sales rep, have rolled out since then.
ITBOOST will host a premiere demonstration of version 3.0 during an IT Nation Connect breakout session on November 8th, at 2:30pm eastern time. IT Nation Connect, the new name since August of the conference formerly known simply as IT Nation, runs from November 7th to 9th.
