The culmination of new CEO David Bennett’s initiative to respond to MSP concerns by eliminating complexity and annoyance created by the old portfolio, the new platform unites all the old solutions within one platform, with one consistent interface, and eliminates some pricing and storage pain points.
David Bennett, Axcient’s CEO
ORLANDO – Backup and cloud migration solution provider Axcient has announced the launch of Axcient X360, a converged backup platform for MSPs that significantly reshapes Axcient’s business, as well as the experience that they offer their MSP customers. The idea is to consolidate what had been an overly complex product array, and replace it with a single experience for Axcient products and services. The Axcient X360 platform will provide single sign-on and a common user experience for MSP management of Office 365 backup, protected sync and share, and BCDR [Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery. Axcient made the announcement at the ConnectWise IT Nation Connect event here.
The new platform is the culmination of the restructuring efforts initiated by David Bennett, Axcient’s CEO, who formally joined Axcient as CEO in early March. He came from Webroot, where he had been the CRO.
“I’m now seven months into the business,” Bennett told ChannelBuzz. “When I came in, I spent time with key MSPs and got honest feedback about what annoys them in the backup and recovery world. They told me that backup isn’t easy, and that it’s actually really confusing. We also make it harder for them, by making them use multiple products that look different. We also made it hard for them to determine what they pay us, and how much to charge their customers.”
Bennett said that he soon developed an overarching strategy, based around simplifying things from their MSP customers’ perspective. This in turn would require simplifying their own business.
“The issue became how we can create a stack of products that solves MSP problems, and makes us easier to use,” he said “This would involve challenges around billing and licensing and getting away from the industry selling backup and recovery the same way as it has been doing for the last 20 years – by units, by term or by capacity. That became the strategy.”
The result, Axcient X360, unites the former Axcient product suite into a single platform.
“Backup and Recovery is the last line of defense in security,” Bennett said. “Most MSPs use one product for it, but to be truly secure you need broader protection, including cloud-to-cloud and Office 365. The X360 platform brings all these together – and makes it easy.” Axcient X360 provides three backup services: Office 365 backup, protected sync and share, and BCDR – all of which now have the same interface and the same user experience.
While all the products are being consolidated on the new platform, none of the old products from the eFolder or Axcient portfolios that are still extant will actually be end-of-lifed.
“We are bringing the portfolios together, and taking the best of each, but there won’t be an end-of-life of anything,” Bennett said. “There will be a transition. We built the new platform to connect the disparate product sets. But all the products still have their old functionality within the new platform.”
There are some big changes, however. A key one is the introduction of unlimited storage and retention. Bennett said that the traditional BDR model has the MSPs buy the product – and then pay extra depending on how much they want to store.
“That makes no sense whatsoever,” he said. “There is now unlimited storage and unlimited retention. This removes what had been a major pain point.”
Pricing has also been fundamentally reworked and simplified, including the end of minimums.
“You can now buy for two users, if a customer has two users,” Bennett indicated. “A lot of MSPs were eating the cost of the unnecessary licenses. MSPs hate their backup provider if you don’t relate to how they build their business.”
Angus Robertson, Axcient’s CRO
“We had Office 365 backup before, but it wasn’t a consistent experience with full multi-tenanted management like it is now,” said Angus Robertson, Axcient’s chief revenue officer. “Now we have one SKU, priced per user.”
“It’s super, super simple,” Bennett added.
“One of our largest MSPs works with 12 backup providers, and we are the only one doing endpoint-based pricing,” Bennett said. “They like the new model. It’s very easy to track, and it’s very easy to build.”
There is now a single-sign on for all services, as well as an integration of supporting services, including billing, support, training and certification, co-branded collateral, campaigns and MDF.
Not everything is completed, however. The new platform means new integrations, and that work is not yet finished.
“From a product standpoint we are rationalizing the APIs,” Robertson said. “That’s a big priority for us, but it’s not done yet. Of the three types of major integrations – PSA, cloud marketplace, and security vendors, the security vendors are the one which still has the most work.”
Axcient is demoing the new X360 platform at IT Nation Connect at their booth, #504.
