Cloud distributor Sherweb has announced another new vendor partnership which will make a third-party solution available through Sherweb to their MSP partners. It is LogMeIn’s LastPass password management solution, which offers both single sign-on and multi-factor authentication.
Jason Brown, Vice President, Product at Sherweb
The partnership represents strategic initiatives by both parties to expand their ecosystems through vendor collaborations. Sherweb has been focusing on expanding the number of solutions it offers partners – both ones of its own design like their OfficeProtect Microsoft 365 add-on that increases cybersecurity, and third party ones like this one. Last fall, at their Accelerate partner event, Sherweb specifically indicated more managed security products would be coming this year.
“We first approached LogMeIn about 12 months ago,” said Jason Brown, Vice President, Product at Sherweb. “We had been looking at the security market in general, trying to find products that fit well into the SMB space. LastPass did well in surveys of both customers and partners. When we approached them, they were in the process of thinking about talking with us as well, so it was good timing.”
LogMeIn has also been pursuing an expansion strategy, involving cloud distribution partnerships. They are relatively new in terms of prioritizing the MSP market. It was only in 2020 that LogMeIn by adding design and billing features necessary for the MSP market to LastPass. Earlier this year, they signed their first cloud distribution deal, with Pax8, which made LastPass available to Pax8’s MSP partners.
Sherweb has not previously offered MSPs a password management solution, but Brown said it’s something most MSPs understand is important.
“We had not offered password management before, but it was high on our list for products from a security perspective, and LastPass was strong for brand recognition and use globally,” he indicated. “The majority of MSP partners have been using some kind of password management tool. They are very prevalent among MSP partners.”
LastPass was originally designed as an enterprise-grade solution, but Brown noted that several things also make it very attractive in the MSP space.
“LastPass is well-known from their presence in the consumer space,” he said. “That’s important among smaller SMBs, where you have many sole proprietors or home-based businesses who naturally start with the consumer tools they know and start using them in their business. So that customer understanding of the product from free consumer use builds a better story. They already know what LastPass is. They don’t need a big education program to make them aware of it.”
LastPass will start out being offered to MSPs as a separate product, but the possibility of it being part of a bundle in the future is there.
“Most of the time, we sell products individually, but bundling is on our radar,” Brown said. “We bundle our own product with Office 365, and training and a small amount of Office backup.”
Look for more third-party products to be added, Brown stated.
“We are still pushing to add more endpoint protection products, and are looking to add more services there,” he said. “We are looking to add backup solutions as well. Many SMBs have built services around backup solutions. We are talking with vendors there.”
Don’t look for Sherweb to offer a lot of competing products, however.
“Our general philosophy is to try to get the number one brand,” Brown noted. “Once we have this beachhead, we look at complementary ones. We don’t want ones that just cannibalize each other. We are also definitely more focused than most distributors on providing services around the products, so we can put them together like a puzzle.”
