The new offering gives both customers and Stratodesk’s channel partners much more flexibility than before.

Today, Stratodesk, which has been making secure managed endpoints for modern workspaces since 2010, has announced their NoTouch Flex all-in-one SaaS offering. It provides cloud-hosted endpoint provisioning and management with a choice of subscription offerings, including monthly, with no upfront capital investment. It provides VDI and thin client interoperability, heterogeneous hardware support, and cloud or on-premises deployment, while turning any PC into a cloud PC.

“We started out as hardware, then moved to a software thin client, all of which was license based,” said Emmanuel Pirker, Founder and CEO of Stratodesk. “Especially today, we want to be the Switzerland of end user computing. Every one is used to that flexibility now, especially subscription-based. This is not like someone shifting to recurring revenue with a lock-in contract. We will have super flexible options.

“I believe channel partners will be relieved as well to know we will be flexible,” Pirker stated. “We will keep our traditional licensing option. If they want to sell that, they can and if they want to sell the new option, they can sell that. They will like the very flexible monthly offering we provide as well. It’s not just yearly and two year.”

Going forward, Pirker expects that both the traditional and SaaS licensing will do well.

“I see the need for both,” he said. “It depends on the company’s IT strategy. The more likely customers are to sign on to these cloud offerings, the more likely that are to sign up for SaaS because of the technical side of the offering. They would want to consume us as a cloud service.”

Pirker expects to see some changes in how the market consumes this technology as a result.

“I definitely see some change,” he said. “We have this Linux based endpoint, although the Windows-based endpoint is still  our number one competitor – although we love Windows. It’s just better consumed on our endpoint than by consuming it locally. We do want to ramp up the conversation around hardware on the Chromebook side of the equation, and we think that NoTouch Flex will help us to do that.”

Steve Thompson, Stratodesk’s Vice President of Global Channels, sees NoTouch Flex as ideally suited to partner needs.

“Partners want to sell more and faster, and they want to do it easier,” he said. “This gives them another avenue to do that. They have asked for this offering. For their customers who have not been willing to make a capital commitment to get into end user computing, it’s a way to get them in quickly and grow. They will have something to offer customers who have been sitting on the fence.”

The new hosted endpoint service has also been added to the Stratodesk Edge channel program, making it easier for partners to resell NoTouch Flex as an extension of their workspace business line.

Thompson said that the way billing works will also appeal to partners.

“Customers can now consume us monthly and get billed in arears for what they use,” he said. “Partners get paid by us after the customer is invoiced. For the partner, it’s clean recurring revenue.”

Pirker said that EUC is well suited to the slowing economy.

“2008 was the first crisis I witnessed,” he said. “People stopped CAPEX spending no matter if it made sense or not. With this, they can stop spending at any time. Even in smaller downturns, the VDI endpoint helps in this situation, which the hardware thin client does not.”

“This is also good for organizations who have seasonal bursting needs,” Thompson added. “The flexibility to scale down may or may not happen, but you are still not locked in to fixed term and long-term licenses.”

“I think this is still the best time to be in End User Computing,” Pirker said. “We see so many interesting things happening, and not just ones which are appealing to the big boys. I’m happy in this business right now.”

NoTouch Flex will be available for purchase starting in March 2023 from Stratodesk and its channel partners.