Warranty Master has added software asset management (SAM) functionality to its hardware asset management and warranty services platform, and adopted a new brand to reflect its broader mission. Renamed ScalePad, the company now offers a complete IT resource lifecycle management offering, according to Dan Wensley, its CEO.
“Everything we’ve done for hardware, we’re now going to be able to do for software,” he says.
The new functionality will draw on existing integrations with RMM and documentation solutions—including products from ConnectWise, Datto, IT Glue, Kaseya, NinjaRMM, SolarWinds MSP, and Synchro—to automatically collect device-specific information about operating systems, security products, and productivity applications such as Microsoft Office, Zoom, and GoToMeeting. Channel pros can use that information to reduce administrative overhead, Wensley notes, by assessing and increasing standardization of software assets within their customer base.
In addition to monitoring license status and renewal dates, users will have the ability to produce customer-ready software overview reports with their logo on top for use in quarterly business reviews and other meetings.
MSPs can charge customers for software asset management, Wensley notes, and also combine software data with hardware data to identify servers and workstations in need of replacement due to pending OS or application upgrades. “We’re helping them drive hardware replacements by identifying software that’s going to require increased capacity,” he says.
Currently available free during a limited preview period, the new SAM functionality will be available to hardware management subscribers for an additional fee afterwards.
Software lifecycle management is a significantly bigger addressable market for ScalePad and its partners than hardware management alone, according to Wensley, who cites data from Spiceworks showing that software will account for 31% of IT budgets in North America this year. That makes it the second biggest technology expense for businesses behind only hardware, which will account for 35% of spending.
On average, Wensley adds, end users have eight to 10 times as many software assets in need of oversight as hardware assets. ScalePad currently tracks data on some 10 million devices for its partners, suggesting that total assets under management will exceed 100 million once operating systems and applications enter the picture.
Warranty Master’s original solution was designed to help users generate incremental revenue by identifying outdated devices potentially in need of replacement or extended warranty coverage. Now that the system supports software too, however, that earlier company name is too narrow, says Wensley, adding that the vendor’s new brand reflects its ambition to serve as a launching pad for scaling IT provider businesses.
The last 18 months have been busy ones for ScalePad, which now integrates with over 30 makers of RMM, PSA, and other managed services products as well as more than 40 hardware manufacturers. The company offers extended warranties for PCs, servers, and network gear now too, and provides quotes on warranties in less than two minutes.
Sales of extended warranty coverage for servers has climbed 60% in 2020 while sales of extended warranties for workstations are up 75% over the last two quarters. 64% of the devices in ScalePad’s database when extended coverage for workstations became available earlier this year were out of warranty, according to Wensley, who calls addressing that gap a $500 million sales opportunity for the channel.
The coronavirus pandemic and associated recession, he continues, have only increased interest in extra warranty coverage among end users. “When an economic downturn hits, the desire or the budget capability for SMBs to purchase new laptops for everybody or new workstations diminishes, which drives up the need and the opportunity for extended warranties on those devices,” Wensley observes.
ScalePad expects to add software asset management support for line of business systems to its platform next year.
