Barracuda will also resell Avast’s anti-virus solutions to their MSPs, which is a major extension of Avast’s go-to-market, and one they are looking to replicate with other RMMs. They are also planning a major solution announcement around RSA a month from now.
Kevin Chapman, General Manager of Avast Business
Avast has announced a new partnership with Barracuda Networks, which the company hopes will be the first step in a significant expansion of their Go-to-Market strategy with other RMM [Remote Monitoring and Management] vendors.
The deal has two parts which are closely connected. First, Barracuda will acquire the RMM business Avast inherited with AVG, which originally came from AVG’s 2013 acquisition of Ottawa-based level platforms. From Avast’s perspective however, the other part of the deal is more important. Barracuda will become a Master Reseller of Avast Antivirus solutions, which include Avast Business CloudCare and Avast Management Console. It’s a three-year agreement.
“We are excited about this partnership, which is a significant one, and very much a win-win for us both and for our partners and customers,” said Kevin Chapman, General Manager of Avast Business.
Chapman indicated that the deal originated when Barracuda came to them about potentially acquiring the RMM Managed Workplace business.
“RMM is a nice complement to security, but its not straightforward for that business because it’s attached to the PSA [Professional Services Automation] market,” he said. “We decided that we wanted to focus on our core, and while Managed Workplace is a great product, it wasn’t core to us. The RMM market is core to what Barracuda does. They came to us, and they made us a very interesting offer.”
Chapman said that Avast expanded the deal to include Barracuda becoming a Master Reseller for them.
“That was the real interesting thing for us, and it works for them because they don’t have an endpoint security solution,” Chapman said. “This is extremely significant for us, because it will give us an incredibly expanded reach. They have a big base of MSPs, so a master reseller agreement with them is meaningful.”
Chapman indicated that Barracuda immediately becomes one of their biggest partners on the Avast Business side of the company. Avast is hopeful that similar deals can now be had with other RMM players. The divestiture of the RMM business to Barracuda removes a competitive situation that could well have been a barrier to further partnerships with other RMM vendors.
“This allows us to build partnerships with other RMM players, because we are no longer competitive with them,” he said. “Barracuda is the first, but we are on a quest for other partnerships in the space. Barracuda taking over Managed Workplace lets us expand into their channel, and into the channels of other RMM vendors as well, and we will certainly be doing that.”
Chapman said that Avast is working on other major initiatives as well.
“When Avast acquired AVG, the business unit was made up of five or so different but similar products with some degree of integration,” he indicated. “We integrated what we had, bringing the best of the best together. To some degree, we are still going through that process, bringing together some of our systems. We just launched a new billing and ordering system a couple of weeks ago. It’s all changing and updating things so all partners can benefit from latest technology, and we have spent quite a bit of time on that.
“As we go and formulate partnerships in the RMM space, we want to grow our partner base but also serve them well by giving them a fuller solution for SMBs,” Chapman added. “We have done extensive research on the SMB, their security posture and security needs. A lot of solutions available to them were designed for the enterprise. We want to bring them a layered solution, but one that isn’t complicated or expensive and is easily managed and deployable. That is what we will be delivering. We will have some exciting news we will be announcing around RSA to bring more of that layered security in.”
