The ControlOne platform, available in Canada as well as the U.S., is designed for MSPs, and is intended to provide both state of the art security and UCaaS in an easy to use platform.
Zane Conkle, CYTRACOM’s CEO and co-founder
Dallas-based UCaaS vendor CYTRACOM, which is completely focused on the MSP space, has announced the availability of their new ControlOne platform to their channel partners in the U.S. and Canada. While previously, CYTRACOM just worked the UCaaS side, the ControlOne platform adds security to connectivity in a simple to use unified platform.
CYTRACOM was founded in 2008 and was originally a VoIP provider.
“Since then, we have grown to offering a full suite of UCaaS solutions with a powerful text messaging platform,” said Zane Conkle, CYTRACOM’s CEO and co-founder. “Today we are in every state in the U.S. and in Canada as well.”
Conkle stressed that ControlOne is a highly differentiated solution that addresses multiple MSP pain points.
“ControlOne is truly unique in the MSP space in that it delivers both network and security services on a cloud-based platform,” he said. “Given that users and applications are increasingly remote, organizations can’t depend on legacy remote access. MSPs have been working to solve these challenges, but it takes many different vendors and technologies, and involves tons of complexity in both choice of tools and configuration. Some of the tools are built for this market, but a lot of them aren’t, so there is tool sprawl.”
Conkle gave an example of a typical MSP customer, a law firm with a couple of sites which is expanding.
“The MSP has to set up their network, buy firewalls, get a web filtering solution, evaluate zero trust users, and determine remote access strategy, as well as who will manage it,” he said. “Why does there have to be this level of complexity?”
Conkle said the design goal for ControlOne was being able to combine all the tools into a single platform that is easy to use and completely focused on making MSPs’ lives easier.
“The goal was for Tier One staff to be able to run the network, not expensive staff,” he stated. “There are smart security defaults to protect MSPs. It’s also all built visually, drag and drop.”
ControlOne starts with the network and defines it in the cloud.
“It is a combination of both hardware and software,” Conkle indicated. “A lot of solutions today are just agent based, and we have that, but there is the physical network that has to be addressed as well.”
“The whole platform is new, the whole code base is new,” said John Tippett, CYTRACOM’s COO. “It’s all very stable and reliable from an infrastructure standpoint and has benefited from working with an early access group.”
Last fall, CYTRACOM acquired SASE vendor OmniNet, but OmniNet’s technology is just one part of ControlOne’s new security component, which features the ability to deploy Zero Trust and to get what the company terms unrivalled visibility across the entire network.
“We acquired OmniNet for its IP because we were looking to accelerate growth in security,” Tippett noted. “We were already developing product in the area. They were at an interesting point in their growth. They were hardware only, and had no agents, but they had interesting technology, especially their back-end infrastructure.”
“It helped us accelerate our time to market as well,” Conkle said. “It’s also the way the market is headed. Gartner says that by 2023, 63% of major enterprises will phase out VPN for ZTNA. Our Zero Trust gives MSPs the power to determine things like what hosts will be on the network, if a laptop must have the latest OS and patches, or be in a specific geo location. Otherwise, they can’t get on the network.”
Tippett said that ControlOne will save MSPs both time and money.
“We look at time broadly, he stated. “For the MSPs, time is king. That’s where they make their money. They spend a ton of time getting to connected and secure.
“This will put MSPs in a position where they will have more confidence in the networks they are managing, and spend less time configuring and less time worrying, compared to running out point solutions on their own,” Conkle added.
“This launch is part of a strategic and aggressive growth plan,” Conkle concluded. “UCaaS is growing exponentially, and our entry into security shows our commitment to solving tough problems. MSPs don’t have a solution like this, which addresses an unrivalled set of practices all in one platform. We displace 4-6 tools on average, with extreme simplicity.”
