Kaspersky continues to build out the MSP Partner program that it formally launched in April.
Kaspersky Lab has announced that it has now completed the integration and certification of their Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business solution with the ConnectWise Manage RMM solution and ConnectWise Automate – formerly LabTech – ConnectWise’s PSA offering.
Kaspersky announced a new MSP specialization and their new MSP Partner Program at the end of January, and launched the program approximately two months ago, with North American partners being able to join at that time.
“We formally announced our program at the beginning of April,” said Kevin Lozeau, director of channel marketing at Kaspersky Lab North America. “We didn’t support the MSP market before through a program, but we have had the offering. This now lets us offer this industry-leading product in a fashion that allows MSPs to take advantage of it.”
Lozeau said that the time had become right to introduce the MSP program.
“We had requests both from existing Kaspersky partners who are MSPs, as well as ones who are currently on other platforms, who have been waiting for us to have this,” he said.
“More resellers are developing managed service practices,” Lozeau added. “It’s a growing area, and one we feel we are well suited to be in, particularly since managed services is all based on reputation. Because the market is shifting, it will also help us with our overall goal and strategy of providing the highest level of security to all resellers out there. At this stage, it’s also the easiest way possible for us to expand our market.”
When the program was announced in April, most programmatic benefits, including the MSP price list and support, were already in place. The ConnectWise integrations were announced at that time as well.
“We have been in beta with them and have done a lot of testing,” Lozeau said. “We are now through the beta stage and everything is fully tested and fully integrated. It’s all ready for prime time.”
The Kaspersky Security Integration Plugin that connects Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business to ConnectWise Manage and ConnectWise Automate is available in the ConnectWise Marketplace. It provides MSPs with ‘single pane of glass’ remote management capability though the ConnectWise console, unified administration of customers’ accounts and seamless automated billing and reporting. It also provides automated monitoring, which ensures that particular tasks are created and assigned to the appropriate person within a team. The integration also brings more resource efficiency to customer service, by the ability to assign business impact and ‘event severity’ to tickets to streamline prioritization and time management.
“We know this relationship with ConnectWise will give us more exposure,” Lozeau said. “They are the largest player in the RMM market place. This will give us the opportunity to work with a lot more MSPs. We’ve heard loud and clear from partners that they wanted this ConnectWise integration.”
