Unpacking Kaseya's Commitment to MSPs - EP61

Justin Esgar (00:07):

All right, we're going to talk about Kaseya today because they had this big announcement and we're going to get into it right now.

Eric Anthony (00:15):

Rich Freeman just published his weekly article and it's titled, Kaseya Wants Your Love, and then it continues on in the first paragraph and your trust and your business, which is why it made a loud public pledge to partners first this week, which a partner first is so overused right now and who believes that Kaseya actually means what they say.

(00:53):

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(02:28):

Justin,

Justin Esgar (02:29):

Make them use their personal devices. This is actually, I've had this a couple times, actually, I just talked to a client earlier today about this, and it wasn't authenticator in this case. We were using one password and the owner said the same thing, I don't want one password on the personal devices. And I said, why? I was questioned. They were like, it comes down to personal politics within the office. The reason was she thought if they put an app on their phone, they're going to want reimbursement for data or whatever, because apparently not everyone has unlimited data, which by the way, like Mint Mobile. So if that's the case, and I was like, well, one password doesn't actually use all that much data and it's not that big of a deal. And also if they leave the firm, which was the other question, she's like, well, how do I know that data's safe if the person leaves, you shut off their access to it and that closes out.

(03:27):

In this case, Jimmy, with the Authenticator thing, the authenticator app on its own does nothing. You still need the username and password. That's the whole point of mfa. So having the authenticator from a securities perspective, fine. The issue really comes down to how the personal politics in that office work. And you really have to dig in with the leadership there and say, why do you believe that? People won't put this on their phones. And leadership might say, we don't want people doing it for whatever the reason is. But you need to come up with those reasons because the answer here isn't, what else can you use other than authenticator? Because they have to use something. And the idea of two FA is supposed to be on another conceptual. It's supposed to be on another device, right? So unless you're going to have them buy UCO keys, which you're not, they don't really have a choice In a small firm like this, I don't believe that the owners would buy UCO keys. I see you giving me looks over there. I don't believe in the, yeah, cause

Eric Anthony (04:34):

I disagree.

Justin Esgar (04:36):

You disagree or you don't disagree.

Eric Anthony (04:38):

I disagree.

Justin Esgar (04:40):

Fine, you'll be wrong. You'll get flamed in the comments. Go for it. What do you got?

Eric Anthony (04:46):

Oh, I can't wait for the comments on this. So here's the problem, right? You are putting a company app on a personal phone in the United States of America, probably not a big deal. However, in other countries, other jurisdictions, there are actually rules around this. And if you insist on an employee using a personal device for work, then work has to pay for that personal device subscription and all. So in that case, YubiKey make more sense. Fair,

Justin Esgar (05:27):

Fine.

Eric Anthony (05:27):

And to me, keys while yes, not cheap, right?

Justin Esgar (05:33):

Yeah.

Eric Anthony (05:35):

Are a hundred percent worth it.

Justin Esgar (05:38):

Oh, I'm not going to disagree that they're worth it. They're a hundred percent worth it. It's just a matter of whether or not they want to pay for them.

Eric Anthony (05:46):

And the other thing is, even in the United States of America, I think we have the right to say no to put that on our personal phones. And so therefore you've got to have another answer. Now, maybe what you do in the good old US of a is you offer them the option. They can either have the authenticator on their phone, which is probably more convenient for them. Actually, I'm not even going to say probably it is absolutely more convenient. I just like being a nerd and using a YubiKey.

Justin Esgar (06:22):

Wait, so I have a question for you then. Okay. On Apple devices, you can have a managed Apple id. So if you have a Apple based business, you have Apple Business Manager, but then that you have a managed Apple id this way, you have an Apple ID at the domain of the company and for security purposes, and on your personal device, if you go to, what is it, system settings. I'm doing this live, I should know this. I took a test and I passed it. But system settings, device management, you're going to see V VP N Device management. You're going to see a thing that says sign into work or school account and you can sign into a work account on your personal device. Now the nice thing here is that it keeps the data between your personal and your work separate. They're separate crypto Texas, and once they've signed in, you can have an MDM profile push the device to install a tool like a Microsoft Authenticator. Do you think, because I honestly I do not know the answer here, but it's baked into the OS and it's built for this. Is that still considered using, does that still fall in using your personal device for work purposes? Because if it is, why would Apple release such an integration?

Eric Anthony (07:50):

So I think it's very good that Apple did that because it does separate work from personal data,

Justin Esgar (07:58):

Right?

Eric Anthony (08:00):

But I think as the owner of the phone, as the owner of the service for that phone, I as an employee have the choice of whether or not to have that profile and have company data on my phone.

Justin Esgar (08:14):

Right? There you go. Or not. So the answer here, Jimmy, get UCO keys and tell the administration of that client to stop being a bunch of cheap butts.

Eric Anthony (08:24):

Yeah, and by the way, UCO keys are great. I use 'em all the time.

Justin Esgar (08:32):

They're not even that to be honest.

Eric Anthony (08:35):

No,

Justin Esgar (08:36):

They're not even really that expensive.

Eric Anthony (08:38):

No, unless people keep losing them all the time.

Justin Esgar (08:41):

A UCO five series with NFC and USBA $50, you BCO five with NFC and USBC $55. Not that expensive. No management of it though. Well actually you know what? Hey Jimmy, you want to make some more money? Give them the UBI codes it cost, but charge 'em an extra 200 and $300 a month to manage them for them. The bosses aren't going to pay it somewhere. They're either going to pay it to the employees to have employee data on their phone and caught the cost there, or are they're going to put it in your pocket, which your big guy guess

Eric Anthony (09:21):

Better to go in your pocket,

Justin Esgar (09:22):

Better to go in your pocket. Well, that's been from the group.

Eric Anthony (09:25):

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Justin Esgar (10:08):

I think it's funny that I had a pretty good Kase rep and he got fired while he was on vacation. While I was on vacation. Also, he sends me a text during the layoffs and I got some new rep and the new rep had hounded me from the day he took his position, which I told him to go F off to, asked me if I'm coming to Khan, we've got a big announcement at Khan, everyone's coming to Khan, you got to come to Kika. I'm like, dude, my conference is a week after and it's my birthday and it's Passover. And no, these are three strikes against you also. Just no. And then the announcement comes out that they drop this $3 and 99 cents per thing, which I think it's supposed to be a new MDR SOC tool, right? It's supposed to be on comparison with Sentinel One. So

Eric Anthony (10:53):

It's R-M-M-M-D-R, which is going to be more along the lines of Black Point Huntress managed and then backup backup's. The other piece of it

Justin Esgar (11:07):

For 3 99, I mean, the thing is that it sounds all well and good, but the problem is it's a wolf in sheep's clothing. And I don't have a massive problem with Kaseya because the stuff that I use from Kase were stuff that got bought and brought into Kase and they've been pretty okay with it, but so many people hate Kase and it res of desperation in my opinion, to want to try to get MSPs to like them again.

(11:44):

And when I went down to Miami over winter break and my rep was still there at the time, he treated me to this amazing burger from the steak place across the street. Meanwhile, he ate a salad. He took me around, introduced me to all these people. I got to meet the COO. He introduced me to all the new salespeople, which I think one of 'em probably took his job, which is probably ironic, which the best part was I walk in there and they're all like, oh, Justin. And I was like, ah, that's horrible. And they were like, what's one bit of advice you can give us? And I was like, be truthful and honest and stop being a show boating asshole, which is perfect. After they did that thing, they're trying to open the doors, right? They're trying to show you what's behind the curtain, but I think it's going to need a lot more than that and that FTA dog that they came out with.

Eric Anthony (12:38):

Well, so here's the thing. I mean, first of all, Kaseya does not have bad products. Most of their products are actually really good.

Justin Esgar (12:48):

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Eric Anthony (12:50):

The problem is how they do business

(12:53):

And they're not going to change that overnight. Change the perception of that overnight. So I'm all for this partner first. If they actually mean it and they're going to do it, the problem is they're going to have to do it probably for longer than they were hoping to actually have an effect. Now then comes the question, what do we think about the price? Price is obviously a good price. It's obviously something that enables going to have to look at. ConnectWise is going to have to look at Synchro Ninja, et cetera, are all going to have to look at in terms of, okay, where does this play? Now my personal opinion is that this is a race to the bottom price, and that doesn't help anybody. Plus, by the way, if you read the fine print, it's 5% increase annually plus the allowance for inflation. So if you actually back that up to last year, now I'm taking somebody else's calculation for this. I didn't actually do the calculation myself, but last year that increase would've been 31%.

Justin Esgar (14:04):

So 3 99 times 1.41,

Eric Anthony (14:11):

1.31,

Justin Esgar (14:12):

Sorry, 1.310, just 39, 9 9 3 99 times 1.31 brings it up to $5 and 22 cents per unit. Not to mention, I'm pretty sure I saw it's only 3 99 for the first year, and it actually is five in change year two. So it's going to be that plus the 41%.

Eric Anthony (14:33):

So it's more than a 5% increase.

Justin Esgar (14:36):

Yeah, you can't say your partner first and then throw in an asterisk at the end and another one and another one. That's where the issue is with Kaseya because I do agree with you, their products are good. Granted all the products that I have with Kaseya, full transparency, I have Datto, RMM, which was from Datto. I have Backupify, which was Backupify and then Datto's. Now Kaseya, I had IT Glue, which I'm getting rid of, and I have ID agent, which was Matt Solomon's and well, not really Mac, but whatever. I don't remember what it's, it was idea and then it became Kase. So I don't actually have any Kaseya homegrown products, mainly because they don't do Mac no matter how much they say we do Mac. So there's my thing about it, I don't hate, and I understand why people do. I have friends who hate Kaseya. They got thrown in the washing machine with boulders during that whole three year contract renewal bullshit that they were pulling, right? Yeah. But you're right. It's not going to turn over overnight. And if this is true that there's going to be a 31% increase year over year with all this other stuff, and what is 3 99 in three years time is going to be $10 a unit.

(16:02):

Now it's not clear. And if you cloud it, it's just going to be worse.

Eric Anthony (16:06):

To be fair, last year was a rate of inflation that we probably won't see again for a while, hopefully. Anyway,

Justin Esgar (16:14):

Hopefully.

Eric Anthony (16:18):

But you're right, you said it perfectly. It's the transparency that they're lacking. It's the actual attitude towards the partner that they want to partner with you. I talked about this, I think it was the last couple of days about how we live in an ecosystem now. It is no longer a channel. It doesn't flow from vendor to MSP to client. That's not the way it works anymore. It's more about an ecosystem flow. MSPs have more influence over their vendors than they've ever had. And this is where I think Kase is missing the boat because I think they think they still have the control and they don't. And people are voting with their wallets and it's not going well.

Justin Esgar (17:06):

I honestly, I just think they're too big for their bridges. When I was down in their office, they have this wall showing their timeline. And what's hilarious is the beginning of it is like Kaseya starts and we had this one product and then we had another. If you go across what is a very long wall, the last five years have so many markers of like, we bought these guys and we bought these guys, we bought these guys, we bought these guys, we bought these guys. And it's like, that doesn't play well. You just look like a mega giant who's trying to stomp on everyone, which kudos and powerful to them for having that kind of bank role to be able to do that. But you're right, if the MSPs join forces and don't pay for Kaseya, then so be it. But again, the problem is they make pretty good products. And I know for a fact that there is a very large group of MSPs that are all part of this group. I would say there's about 20 of them in this group, somewhere

Eric Anthony (18:13):

Around there, somewhere

Justin Esgar (18:14):

Around there that use a lot of Kaseya products. I have friends that are in that group and they use IT Glue and they use Datto because they get it from the group who gets it from Kaseya at a better price. There's a couple groups that do this actually, and I'm thinking about it. I know another guy who runs a PC MSP in New York, and he's almost like a franchise. I want to believe it's been a while since I spoken to this guy. And he uses Datto from Kaseya because the parent organization of which he's a franchisee of buys it at bulk and gives it to them because it works. Thatto works and it doesn't work for Mac people, but whatever.

(18:58):

I think if Kaseya wants to win us back as MSPs, not just Mac people, but if you want to win us back as MSPs, drop all the pomp and circumstance, stop having big tech parties with confetti and free burgers and you're catering towards the primal urges of entrepreneurship. Put out a series of content of truthful things. Put out the c-suite and have them sit at a panel and get their ass chewed by MSPs in hall H at, I don't know. You know what I'm saying? Pull the curtain back from the upper levels because it's one thing, and it's funny that I'm about to say this because I'm trying to explain this concept to my son. Actions speak louder than words. And they can go around telling everyone all day long that they're better now and the new casea and they have new management and they have these new products, whatever, it's, but shut up and put up. By the way, we never did the intro to this episode.

Eric Anthony (20:11):

That's

Justin Esgar (20:12):

Okay, because we just started doing one.

Eric Anthony (20:15):

The other element here that somebody pointed out to me earlier this week is that MSPs are not K'S sole business. They do a large direct business to internal it. And a lot of these tactics are the types of things that you see still in enterprise and mid-market sales,

Justin Esgar (20:39):

Right? But the problem is that this show is called All Things MSP, not all things direct internal IT teams,

Eric Anthony (20:47):

Which is why we obviously take it from an MSP standpoint.

Justin Esgar (20:51):

And we're starting, we're

Eric Anthony (20:51):

Pointing out that Kaseya behaves the way Kaseya does because it caters to more than just the MSP business.

Justin Esgar (21:00):

Well, you could say the same thing about Microsoft, right? Microsoft does the same thing. Microsoft is sells direct to massive, which is why they're

Eric Anthony (21:06):

Not a great partner.

Justin Esgar (21:07):

They're a horrible partner. Also, by the way, Microsoft teams for Mac has been barely, I was posing this earlier that I want to start a new movement called it was MTWA, but the A was scratched out because it stood for make teams work again. But the word again is still scratched out because teams has never worked for back people. So I'm starting the new make teams work MTW campaign if you want to donate 50 cents to making teams work. But yeah, that's the problem I think. Alright, let's take it from the other perspective. This is the problem I have with a lot of MSPs. A lot of MSPs honestly believe, especially the small ones, honestly believe that these bigger partners give a flying hoot about them. I have a friend who got mad at Meraki who is owned by Cisco because something didn't work and said, I'm never using them again because of this one thing.

(22:07):

Do you think Meraki, which is a multi-billion dollar company owned by a bigger billion dollar company, gives a crap about your two person MSP in Montana? I don't know where he lives. And if I did, I wouldn't say it because I don't want to blow up a spot. But we are so high on ourselves as entrepreneurs. Listen, I have a podcast and people have recognized me for the podcast, and that gives me a little bit of an ego boost, but I know where to check it. I have never called Apple or any, I know enough people at Apple. I've never called Apple being like, I demand a free Apple Vision Pro. I have paid my dues. Are you kidding me?

Eric Anthony (22:54):

No, no. But that has started to happen because of the empowerment of the ecosystem that I was talking about before.

Justin Esgar (23:05):

Sure.

Eric Anthony (23:06):

Now the other thing that I want to point out because I think it bears mentioning, is that there are MSPs that I know who are completely happy with Kaseya.

Justin Esgar (23:20):

Yes.

Eric Anthony (23:21):

And by the way, I can't help but noticing they are MSPs that are larger, that are more mature, have more processes in place. And so while I think there's a correlation there, and I think there's a minimum of causation too because I think if you are a more mature MSP with more mature processes, you have mature processes for reconciliation of your bills and all of that, and you have somebody to keep up with your vendors and your vendor policies and those types of things, smaller MSPs. And so I think Kase is kind of missing an opportunity here by not fixing those things. Hopefully they are, but if they're not, they're missing an opportunity because smaller MSPs cannot deal with that.

Justin Esgar (24:22):

And again, look, let's take it from Kaseya side of things, right? Who's giving them more money? You a two person MSP or the enterprise 1215. Look at it from that perspective also, right? Yes. The smaller MSP could potentially give more than the larger MSP, but more than not because it's the same, you go to the clients who pay you. That's why you as the MSP owner do the same thing with your clients.

Eric Anthony (24:56):

So yes. However, if you look at the cumulative market, there are so many small MSPs spending a small amount of money each that they equal the large MSPs. So what you have to do in that case is you have to figure out, as a vendor, you have to figure out how to scale down. You have to automate your transactions and have minimal engagement with those partners. Because by the way, they don't want engagement. They want to click a button and buy and deploy your product to their clients and get that pain point solved.

Justin Esgar (25:34):

Yeah, I want to click a button and deploy Microsoft Teams and not have it not fail. Done. Can someone please make this happen for me? What's up everybody? Welcome to the All Things MSP podcast. My name is Justin, that's Eric Anthony. This is the end of the show.

Eric Anthony (25:55):

No, but we're going to edit this to put this intro at the beginning of the show, and then we're going to record the outro now.

Justin Esgar (26:04):

Well, yeah. Look, this turned into a little bit of a complaint session, but do you let us know? Do you Kaseya, do Microsoft? I want to ask the group, give us one company you love and one company you don't like, and give us why. And don't just BS the reasons I want to see a proper reason why. Leave that comment at facebook.com/groups/all things msp. Follow us on YouTube, youtube.com/at all things msp, follow on all of your favorite podcasting. Listen, you're probably listening to this right now, but go find another podcasting tool and listen to us again. By the way, we're on iHeartRadio now. For anyone who cares, are you listening to this on iHeartRadio? If you are, let us know at facebook.com/group/all things up. Sweet. See, it's a loop. It's an infinite loop.

Eric Anthony (26:50):

Or better, they could click that little thumbs up button because that thumbs up button tells us that they're listening on that different platform.

Justin Esgar (26:58):

Oh really? I actually didn't slow the iHeartRadio up myself. But that's it for us. That's Eric. I'm Justin. Bye.

Eric Anthony (27:07):

Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform. You can also follow us on Facebook, but better yet, go ahead and join the Facebook group. You can also follow us on Instagram if that's your thing. And make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel at all things MSP to catch us in all of our video glory. And last, but certainly not least, if LinkedIn is your thing, you can follow us there as well. And a special thank you to our premier sponsors Super Ops Move Bot goes into Easy DMAC and comtech. And we also want to thank our vendor sponsors. The All Things MSP podcast is a biz POW LLC production.