MSP INITIATIVE LIVE WITH COLIN BRITTON FROM DEVICIE

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this episode of MSP Initiative Live, Colin Britton from Devicey discusses the state of the MSP industry and Microsoft 365, touching upon topics like growth equity, venture capital, technology evolution, and the role of MSPs in leveraging Microsoft's tools. The conversation explores the journey of Devicey, its alignment with Microsoft offerings, and how it serves both MSPs and direct organizations. Colin highlights the increasing focus on automation, AI, and the consolidation of services in the MSP space, aiming to make businesses more efficient and productive.

Highlights

An engaging chat with Colin Britton about Devicey's role in enhancing Microsoft 365 environments. 💡
Discussion on the venture capital influence on tech, with a focus on Microsoft's strategic moves. 📈
Exploration of Devicey’s unique approach to automation and multi-tenancy in the MSP space. 🔍
Insights into how Devicey aids both MSPs and direct organizations with Microsoft 365. 🤝
Colin shares predictions about the future of MSP services and the importance of bundling and consolidation. 🔮

Key Takeaways

MSP Initiative Live dives into the ever-evolving world of MSPs and Microsoft tools with Colin Britton from Devicey. 🎙️
Colin explains the importance of understanding the venture capital landscape and its impacts on technology growth. 💼
Devicey is leveraging Microsoft's ecosystem to streamline and optimize services for both MSPs and businesses. 🔄
Multi-tenancy and automation are crucial for MSPs to enhance efficiency and scale their operations. 🔧
The future lies in informed and opinionated IT management solutions that simplify and secure environments. 🔐

Overview

In this lively session of MSP Initiative Live, George hosts Colin Britton from Devicey, diving deep into the intricacies of the MSP market and its relationship with Microsoft's extensive toolset. The discussion opens up with an exploration of Colin's career journey and Devicey's unique position in the market. With insights into the venture capital influence on this space, we explore how significant investments have shaped and will continue to mold the future of IT services.

Colin shares how Devicey is crucial in bringing multi-tenancy and automated efficiencies to the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. By simplifying configurations and offering a robust management layer, Devicey stands as an ally for MSPs and businesses alike, helping streamline their operations while ensuring secure and productive environments. Colin emphasizes Devicey's informed and opinionated approach that allows clients to maximize their use of Microsoft's capabilities without the heavy lifting.

Throughout the conversation, the benefits and challenges of bundling, technology evolution, and customer management are explored. Colin points out the importance of aligning with Microsoft, leveraging their expansive features, and keeping pace with the rapid changes in tech. With a strong focus on innovation and service efficiency, this discussion is packed with insights for anyone invested in the MSP market and its future trajectory.

Chapters

00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Background This chapter introduces the MSP Initiative Live event, occurring on April 24th, while acknowledging the numerous events happening throughout the year. The speaker humorously mentions the overwhelming number of events, including the concurrent NFL draft, and expresses their enthusiasm as an Eagles fan.
03:00 - 10:00: Colin Britton's Journey into Technology The chapter introduces Colin Britton from Devicey, highlighting the evergreen and continuous nature of advancements in technology. The host sets the stage for discussing ongoing events in the tech world, emphasizing the dynamic and ever-evolving landscape.
10:00 - 18:00: The Role of Venture Capital in MSP Space The chapter discusses the role of venture capital in the Managed Service Providers (MSP) space, with an introduction to Colin and his company. It mentions the busy schedule of events including travels to upstate New York, Manhattan, RSA, and Cassa Connect, and notes that all sessions are recorded and available on mspinitiative.com.
18:00 - 25:00: Consolidation and Bundling in Technology In this chapter titled 'Consolidation and Bundling in Technology,' the conversation begins with a light moment about location and weather. The speaker is in Newark, part of the New York airport system but located in New Jersey. They jokingly comment on the airport code as a common identifier despite the geographical nuances. The dialogue then shifts to appreciating the pleasant weather typical of that time of year, setting a casual and relaxed tone for the discussion ahead.
25:00 - 31:00: Microsoft's Influence on the MSP Industry This chapter discusses Microsoft's influence on the MSP (Managed Service Provider) industry. The conversation starts with a light-hearted chat about the weather, particularly calling upstate New York the tundra due to its cold conditions. The focus then shifts to Colin, a first-time guest on the show, as the host expresses interest in learning about Colin's background in technology before diving deeper into how Microsoft impacts the industry.
31:00 - 43:00: Devicey: Overview and Offerings The chapter titled "Devicey: Overview and Offerings" begins with an introduction to Devicey for those unfamiliar with the name. The narrator, who has a background in the recording industry during the late 80s in London, shares their initial encounter with Apple Mac, setting the stage for further exploration of Devicey and its offerings.
43:00 - 52:00: Competitors and Market Positioning The chapter titled 'Competitors and Market Positioning' delves into the narrator's background, highlighting their early exposure to computers, influenced by a father in computer technology. This foundation led to an interest in Macintosh and publishing systems, which eventually brought them to the United States. The narrative outlines a career journey through various startups, particularly emphasizing a 12-year experience in the Managed Service Provider (MSP) space and involvement with portfolio companies at Inside Partners, a growth venture firm. Ultimately, the chapter sets the stage for understanding market positions in the competitive landscape through the narrator's personal and professional evolution.
52:00 - 69:00: The Role of AI and Automation The chapter discusses the speaker's history in various companies related to AI and automation. The speaker was part of a team at TeamViewer, which was sold to Pamira, and later became part of LogicNow and Soloind's MSP, eventually transforming into Enable. These companies were part of the GFI group at that time. The speaker specializes in helping companies grow, especially in investment businesses related to AI and automation.
69:00 - 87:00: Devicey's Business Model and Market Approach The chapter discusses Devicey's business model and market approach by reflecting on the speaker's personal journey, emphasizing their experience in growing software companies. The discussion includes a historical context, mentioning significant industry events such as the sale of Solar Winds, which relates to the MSP sandbox environment.
87:00 - 96:00: Insight's Investment in Devicey The chapter discusses Insight's investment in Devicey, highlighting it as a successful business outcome. It mentions a significant cyber incident with Solar Winds that occurred two or three years ago and notes that despite this, the companies involved, including Enable, remained traded on the exchange. The chapter seems to set the stage for exploring further questions related to this investment and its implications.
96:00 - 100:00: The Evolution of MSP and Technology Integration This chapter discusses the current state and future of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and their integration with technology. The speaker reflects on investor interest, particularly venture capital, in the MSP sector. Despite economic fluctuations and interest rates, the speaker believes that investment will continue to grow as the economic conditions improve. The chapter touches upon the dynamic nature of technology integration within MSPs, highlighting both challenges and opportunities in the industry.

MSP INITIATIVE LIVE WITH COLIN BRITTON FROM DEVICIE Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 Hello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to an April 24th edition of the MSP Initiative Live. We are uh live and on the road which happens uh as the year goes on as you know there's 8,000 events to go to. I know I'm exaggerating. Hundreds of events to go to. Um today also happens to be the NFL draft. As you know, I have my uh I have my Eagles gear
00:30 - 01:00 as usual. So, uh that is uh timely because it is that time of year and it is uh that time of season. But anyway, as you know, the technology uh sandbox doesn't doesn't ever stop. There's always stuff going on. Uh we'll talk a little bit about, you know, some current events today, but uh new guests on the show for the first time. uh Colin from Devicey. Uh so we're going to uh learn a
01:00 - 01:30 little bit about Colin and Colin's company and um this session is being recorded like every other MSP initiative session and you'll see all of our stuff available at mspinitiative.com. Colin, how we doing today, buddy? We're good. We're good. Um everybody's traveling, right? So, you know, uh I've been in upstate New York and I'm on the way back to Manhattan and then heading off to RSA at the weekend and then we got Cassa Connect next week. Um yeah, it's it's busy busy. Exactly.
01:30 - 02:00 Well, I'm not too far away from you. I'm actually here in Newark, Newark airport. So, we have that technically still part of the New York airport system, but uh in New Jersey for whatever that's worth. Yeah, exactly. Uh, how that works, I don't mind. But as long as the airport codes are the same, we're we're good. Exactly. Exactly. Well, you're you're in this part of the world, you know, the country and the world at a good time of year when it's like 80 degrees outside. So, uh, that's never a bad thing. It's
02:00 - 02:30 beautiful today. So, yeah, for for my colleagues who live in upstate New York, I I call that the tundra for a lot of the year, you know, where it's, you know, frigid and cold, but I'm sure they're they're having a little bit of nice weather as well. So, Colin, this is your first time on the on the show. Um, I always like to, I don't know, learn a little bit about you, the person, right? Like your background, how you got into, you know, technology, right? And then we can pivot
02:30 - 03:00 into a little bit about like what Devicey is for people who haven't heard that name before. But, uh, go ahead. Start wherever you want to. Uh I'm old enough that starting at the beginning is probably too too long. But uh I didn't spend the late 80s working in the recording industry. Um which was was uh uh in London which was a fun time. That introduced me to the Apple Mac. And that's how I uh you know I'd
03:00 - 03:30 grown up around computers. My dad was in in computer technology. Um but I I got into uh the Macintosh which led me into the publishing systems and kind of all the way down the line that eventually put me into the states and um doing various startups and for the last 12 years I've worked um in and around this MSP space um and similar things uh with various portfolio companies of inside partners the the growth uh venture
03:30 - 04:00 company. So I um was part of the team at team viewer um we sold it to we sold it to Pamira um logic now which became Soloind's MSP which became enable so I was there uh which was all part of the GFI group at that time um and then various other um you know similar investment businesses and I specialize in helping companies grow. So
04:00 - 04:30 whilst I've got a technology background, most of what I I've I've got the scars as I like to say um to uh to kind of figure out how to help software companies grow and that's what I do. That's very interesting. So you're actually your your personal journey very much intertwines with what I like to call the MSP sandboxes history, right? Yeah. Um GFI you know goes back quite a bit and uh you know enable sister company Solar Winds just sold I think less than 10 days ago for 4.4 billion
04:30 - 05:00 that was a successful uh you know outcome for that business given not too long ago I think two years maybe three years they had the whole cyber incident right with Solar Winds. Um so but and then enable you know kind of separated logically but they were still traded you know on the on the exchange right. Um so let me ask you this question before we get into you know um other
05:00 - 05:30 things. I would like to understand from your point of view how the how the wheel is now spinning then based on you know you you me you mentioned I think insight right you me you know there's obviously a lot of venture capital dollars still flooding in and I argue as the interest rate will ultimately come down in my opinion those dollars will turn back on even faster right so do you you know there's a jackal high part
05:30 - 06:00 of this conversation But from where you sit, do you think that's a good thing for you know for the whole or do you find that you know time constraints create problems in how the industry works when the money man is behind you? There's a lot of questions inside that question. So uh let's start with my you know obviously I I work with growth equity. I work with the these investment
06:00 - 06:30 teams and go into businesses. I'm always like part of the business. I'm not in the investment team itself. So I have very much a uh how do I help that business grow and how how do I help that that area go on? Um the a lot of the venture capital companies who have invested in this space and know this space have a much better understanding of what's going on in the space than people give them credit for. It's it's pretty easy to go knock them and and go, "Oh, they're just money. They're doing
06:30 - 07:00 this. They're, you know, there's just a lot of negativity around the money they go spend." But you got to remember these guys, like particularly the investment team at Insight has been around this whole space longer than many people who are in it, right? They've been investing in this space. If you if you look back to the GFI money, right? You know, um, Insight's 30 years old. they've been doing it investing um all that time, right? And wow um and so their
07:00 - 07:30 understanding of the space, their understanding of the dynamics of the space um the the the pieces that have come through is is very wellformed. They have very good opinions of what's going on and very kind of deep knowledge. If you look across I can't remember the exact number right now of cyber investments they own um that they've got in but it's like 80 just in cyber um and then you know even just within the MSP space obviously uh CASA and uh veh um
07:30 - 08:00 and they were early money in whiz right um you just go down the list it's they are very wellinformed about the space and about what's going on much more than people give them credit I I mean I don't think I ever actually thought how the time span here. The fact that we're talking about decades. I mean they have a lot of macro data that I don't think I even considered until that you just mentioned it. Right. Yeah. And
08:00 - 08:30 so when they look at these businesses they're they're wellinformed about what good looks like. They know what metrics really matter. They understand the challenges of the space right and what it takes. And so, you know, there's a lot of things that they that they bring to the table that, you know, people just don't give them credit for. So, um I I think we've got to kind of take that into it because it's really easy just to go, you know, private equity or whatever is is, you know, um think about the negative side of it. And there there are
08:30 - 09:00 organizations and things that have been negatives, but generally speaking, they've birthed and grown a lot of very good companies. Sure. So usually the next thing I talk about right after this part of the conversation is the consolidation turned into bundling pricing wars, you know, which so uh I was just listening to uh your episode from last week, right? And um you brought that up and you talk about it and yeah I mean it's you know um
09:00 - 09:30 acquiring a customer like just stepping away from whether it's this industry or anything else like acquiring a customer is much more expensive right than retaining a customer. And so you you know you go and once you've acquired a customer you need to service them well which is why you know everybody talks about community and building the community particularly in this space right whether you're enable or casser or whomever right everybody talks about the
09:30 - 10:00 community aspect why that's part of retention right you know you're only going to retain people who are happy and then um the the second part is so how do you grow your business okay you've acquired companies uh you've acquired customers, you're keeping them happy so they stick with you. It's sell them more things, right? And what's the easiest way to sell them more things? Bundle it. And so as the maturity of an organization goes on, for them to maintain growth, they have to have new pieces to add to the offering, right?
10:00 - 10:30 And it's got to make sense, right? It's technically got to make sense, but it's financially got to make sense as well. So, you know, um the more mature a software company, the more likely it is to be uh bundling um other other pieces in andor playing with that uh you know those particular deck of cards to you know achieve their their financial goals. So, so let me let me go to the other elephant in the room, right? I feel like
10:30 - 11:00 in you know the MSP industry is a micro segment of the larger technology industry right so or at least that's how I view it but so they when you look up to the people upstairs you think Microsoft Apple Amazon right like those big name big dollar companies like and there's others right well Microsoft if you look at what they've done even in the last three years right they've affected ively increased the price of Microsoft 365 or
11:00 - 11:30 Office 365, whatever their branding is, um, by almost 45% over 3 years, right? And like I assume there's a lot of reasons they did that, right? The cost of electricity, bandwidth, data centers, all of that stuff. But like that's a, you know, when you're that big, right? You're like, well, where else are you going to go? Right? It's a little bit different when you're not at the top of the food chain. Yeah, I
11:30 - 12:00 mean I mean the same they're doing the same thing that everybody else is doing, right? So you look at the licensing skews, you know, business standard, business premium, E35, right? You know, um they are they are cons they are driving people up the stack and getting them to consolidate on the tooling and the bundling by getting more and more of it. Right? Nobody's buying individual licenses of stuff anymore in Microsoft. They're buying bundles, right? That's how you buy it. It's the most cost- effective way to do
12:00 - 12:30 it. And then they're adding value with new things. So, C-pilot uh as as one there, right? You know, that's not free. Um that that comes along. And they're also then uh doing kind of bundling messaging around well why have four, five, six, 10 different vendors doing different things when you can have a suite of products from us but you're largely paying for all the pieces in your licenses already. Why not consolidate on that? Right? So whether or not you're you know business premium
12:30 - 13:00 is a great a great example right it's got a lot of the great things in that people want and a lot of people don't use all of that capability. Um, oh, and and I was literally just about to mention that top that that reality, right? Like back before everybody subscribed to every streaming service on the planet, you would call up the local cable or fiber company, you'd subscribe to the plan, right? Yeah. And like in the plan is like 250 channels. I may only watch seven of them, right? So like I'm paying for this bundle of of
13:00 - 13:30 entertainment and and you know of channels that you know they're charging me for the whole thing but I'm not really using it all. Exactly. And and but bundling Yeah. So bundling just works in so many markets and so many levels. And so that's kind of a a key thing from it. And um to kind of pivot this slightly into well let's go somewhere else first with it. So for organizations to grow then there's a couple things that got to happen. Obviously you can increase your
13:30 - 14:00 price but you got to increase the value from it unless you become uncompetitive right or uh unless you've got such a monopoly that you have like but you're going to do that anyway. Um so you know they're going to add features price go up for that they're going to bundle things. That's what it drives. The second is expanding their total addressable market. And so if you look at say um well let's stick with Microsoft again right you know uh lots
14:00 - 14:30 and lots of people use it but how do they drive more usage particularly at at the smaller end of of the game. Um you were saying you know MSP market is a quite small market or you know a little thing of it. It might be by dollars, right? It might be by dollars. It might be by seat count compared to the Fortune companies, but actually in terms of accounts, it is very significant, right?
14:30 - 15:00 In terms of the number of accounts under management, number of entities under management. You're talking about um uh yeah, Australia and uh A&Z market as well. Uh some of the market differences there. The average company size, average entity size in Australia is something like less than 350 seats. Uh at like there's only like 2 of the C organizations in Australia that are
15:00 - 15:30 bigger than 350 seats. So it it that's why the MSP market is so strong down there because it at that seat count you know it makes a lot of sense right to use an MSP as opposed to having your own um IT department and you know the the US uh obviously different sizing but small businesses and smallmedium corporations are a a huge engine in terms of the number of organizations that that are there to to sell to and to service.
15:30 - 16:00 I mean they always say that you know at least 50% of the economy would be small companies right I mean you know take the government take the government employees out of it right and just talk about the actual for-profit companies you know from that measurement yeah yeah but it's only I think the US is like 2% of businesses are greater than 500 users something like that yeah I think I think you're right something around that so so
16:00 - 16:30 when you get something like an E3 or an E5 or even business premium. Um, there's a lot of things in that bundle and how do you become productive with that environment? How do you achieve what that environment is going to give you without external help, right? And that's where the MSPs come, right? You know, not everybody can afford to have their Microsoft 365 expert on staff as well as an IT team, right? Yeah. Um, and that's that's what the MSP market brings brings into this.
16:30 - 17:00 And so for the for the people that argue that the Microsofts of the world, their endgame is to just have everybody but go direct and buy from them, is that a is that a false fear or is that is that the big plan? I think that's a false fear. Um we got to separate go to market from you got to separate go to market motion how you procure from
17:00 - 17:30 what tool you should use. So do I think they want everybody to use all their tools? Absolutely. I I you know they absolutely just you know few weeks ago they announced you can now get E5 security on top of BP. Right. Yeah. So that's that's a that's a big change. It's a recognition that that security stack can be made available to small medium businesses and small medium corporations, right? And that that's a that's super interesting. It's what an extra 12 bucks, right? Um which, you
17:30 - 18:00 know, can add up, but when you look at what you're paying elsewhere, you're probably spending more than that elsewhere. So consolid their argument is you should consolidate on their stack. Of course, that's their argument. Um and uh they are looking you know they are paying a lot more attention to the SMB and SMC and MSP market because they know the MSPs are the unlock for consolidation of tooling in that space. So they are paying a lot of attention.
18:00 - 18:30 Okay. I would say if that's the case like if you if I'm going maybe not as far back as 30 years back but remember uh before Office 365 it was BPA right business productivity suite and like intoune was in its infancy right and like the idea of the RMM in its MSP form right think the CASSA RMM think lab tech which became then the connectwise RMM think enable think like I don't think
18:30 - 19:00 they understood that model. No, I Yeah, logic now, right? I don't think Microsoft at that point in time understood that model, right? But I think didn't didn't understand and I don't think they cared about it. Yeah. Then yeah, but but today I think but they're not quite there yet, but I feel like they're inching in that direction. Um they're a super tanker, so it takes time for them to turn. Um but when they
19:00 - 19:30 put their minds to something they are going to turn right you know and um the um we can talk about what device he does and you'll hear why my opinion is is in that way. Right. Perfect perfect time to cross cross the bridges here. Right. So I remember I was flown out as an MSP back in somewhere between 2008 and 2010 and
19:30 - 20:00 one of the reasons they brought me out was I had consumed a ton of Intune. My idea was to try and make intune my RMM. I ran into a lot of glass ceilings very quickly and so they took a lot of feedback from me back in at that time but at the end of the day like I don't think the design of what they had intended meant what I was trying to accomplish right I think they've reinvented it a couple of times over
20:00 - 20:30 since right like and there's been some other stuff that's come out like Lighthouse and and other things right like you know autopilot and you know they've definitely matured it and it's gone much further than where it was back in 2010, but it's still not quite multi-tenented. It's still not quite as simple or as agile for the MSP to use across all their customers, but
20:30 - 21:00 it's still powerful, right? So then this is where the can you get the square peg to fit in the round hole or is that not realistic? So yeah, you're right. Uh, Intune is not multi-tenant. In fact, let's just say Microsoft 365 is not multi-tenant because it's the whole stack, not just right that you need, not just that, not just the Intune piece. Um, and multi-tenency is is key, right? And uh, for MSPs and again, you talk about this
21:00 - 21:30 quite often, like to scale an MSP, you need process and repeatability and consistency, right? You can't have every customer being being a a snowflake, right? It's it's got to you've got to have like uh a um a view of the world. And so what devicey does is devicey is a um management layer an automation layer that sits on top of Microsoft 365 and in particular engine um brings that consistency and that
21:30 - 22:00 multi-tenency uh for customers and whether those customers are um SMBs, SMC's or MSPs and that's kind of what we bring it bring to it and um we have a set of policies and templates um what we call runbooks um which fit particular use cases that organizations have that allow you to very quickly establish a Microsoft 365
22:00 - 22:30 um environment that is that works in that way and is compliant um in that way and so you can very quickly get to uh secure endpoints uh but still with productivity on the devices for for the users. So getting things like autopilot up and running, um being able to like drop ship a brand new laptop and it'll boot and load and have all the right applications on it in 20 minutes. Inshoot does all that stuff. Great if you know what you're doing with Intune,
22:30 - 23:00 right? And so we bring along all of the automation and that preconfiguration to just make that happen. And so literally in about 20 minutes we we build an Intune instance um and configure all of that and it basically will do what almost all organizations in the SMB and SMC space should be doing and don't get to themselves um automatically. And so that that's the kind of play there and
23:00 - 23:30 we're very aligned with Microsoft um we're part of their VISA security association. Um, we're in the Microsoft startups Pegasus program which is a invitation only uh startups program. We're very wired in with the the Microsoft 365 product teams. We got some stuff announcing at uh RSA next week with them. They've got some things announcing. We're part of that. So um yeah, so we we talk about ourselves as being, you know, uh informed and
23:30 - 24:00 opinionated around what your Microsoft 365 environment should look like and kind of bring that through our product. And so in the MSP space, yep, there's a there's a handful of names that come to the top of my mind. I'm just throwing them out there so that somebody who's watching this or listening to this later can be like, well, I know what this is. I've seen this name before. How does this and this match up? Right. So, you know, when I think about some of the
24:00 - 24:30 products, I I hear uh like Enforcer. Yep. I hear uh CIP. Yep. I hear um SAS Alerts, which I believe CASSA acquired last year or got merged into the CASSA companies. Yep. And then I hear um there's one more Nerdio. Well, Nerdio more recently. That didn't used to be their thing, but like they definitely have announced that probably
24:30 - 25:00 at I think their conference a couple weeks ago, at least that's what I read. No, there's one more. Um I do augment. Augment. Yep. Augment. So, those are the I think there's five right there. They're the guys that are like, "Hey, in one shape or form, we want to monitor 365 for you because it's on its own. There's a lot there and you're probably not paying attention." Some of them do more configuration than others. Some of
25:00 - 25:30 them, you know, do more, you know, remediation than others, but there's an overlapping of those five names in one way or another. So, where do you fit in that grouping? So um obviously as a software vendor we always like to say we're unique and different differentiated right you know uh that's the kind of playbook uh 101 right we are we combine our software platform as well as our uh service team
25:30 - 26:00 right we've got a strong bench of um Microsoft Intune and uh Microsoft 365 expertise on staff And we we see ourselves as an extension of the MSP or uh or the customer, right? In terms of we're the guys who are looking out for their the Microsoft 365 environment. So something's happening uh that we are seeing right um in terms of what
26:00 - 26:30 Microsoft's changing or in terms of what's happening. So, Windows update obviously always worked perfectly of course, right? Um so you know when we see things we know who it's going to impact and so unlike organizations with a deep bench in the space um we are the informed and opinionated people who bring to them and say hey look this is going on we recommend this change and for some of our customers not only you know depends
26:30 - 27:00 on their change management process we're actually doing it for them anyway um and managing that environment. So, where do I think this is going? We're seeing uh Shane, our our CEO, likes to talk about the fact that we don't want to be a button on a button. Many of many many tools, many IT tools are just that they're a button on a button. Are they do they make life a little simpler? Yes, maybe. But at the end of the day, you still got to have the expertise. You still got to know what you want to do in order to be able
27:00 - 27:30 to do this, right? And so um those tools may help experts be more efficient, but they don't actually help the people who don't know what they don't know, right? And uh and so what we're doing is is coming along as said with this informed and opinionated approach and saying, "Yeah, this is what good looks like and we can get you to your, you know, 85 90% Microsoft 365 that most organizations, it's like the reverse 8020 rule. Most organizations get to 20% of the
27:30 - 28:00 capability of Microsoft 365 with 80% of the effort, right? And um you know, we flip that around. We get you to 80% with like near zero effort on on on the customer side, including automation, including management, including policies, etc., etc. And where we believe the whole space is going is these kind of tools um go from being SAS tools to being services software. And so
28:00 - 28:30 you know particularly that's where that's where AI is taking things. But even without AI, you should be able to say I want to achieve this outcome and it's just done for you. And whether a human's doing that, whether or not workflow automation is doing that, etc. And going back to the button on a button thing, often what you're doing with a button on the button is like I'm going to turn this on, this on, and this on which will achieve these goals where that should just be a defined workflow. I want this outcome. Go turn on these things for me
28:30 - 29:00 automatically. No, I I mean, listen, there's no question that when you read into the fine print of what Microsoft puts out there, they're like, "It can be made to be compliant for multiple things, but they're just giving you a vanilla and you have to go in and start turning knobs." I mean, I'll go with something as simple as Colin, the Microsoft security score. When you go to create a brand new Microsoft tenant for the first time and create three, you know, add user for email, the security score on that's like
29:00 - 29:30 super low, like almost single digits, right? Like they expect you to go turn those things on. I often ask, why don't they just set the bar higher to begin with? And I guess their response is, well, we don't know what you're doing, correct? So, so we don't want to assume, right? Yeah. and they're building it they're building an environment for the uh for everybody right not for individuals and again you talk about like in the MSP space MSPs are likely
29:30 - 30:00 going to be productive MSPs are likely uh verticalized as well right and so you know if you're providing MSP services to a school it looks quite different than a doctor's office than a financial services institution than a manufacturing organization, you know, is is the majority the same? Yeah, the majority is the sh the same, but that those minority changes are the things that mess you up, right? And and
30:00 - 30:30 you know, that's that's what you need to be able to do. And um you know, again, that's what our runbooks are about is saying, hey, you need to be um you're a school district and you're doing student devices and you've got but you've also got BYOD. um here's what that patent looks like, right? And we can deploy that for you and you can go go work on that. And so let me go the other way then. So clearly
30:30 - 31:00 a lot of your value comes out when I'm deploying something for the first time. What happens if I'm an MSP and I already have a lot of pre-existing environments that depending on when that customer was adopted at varying stages in the timeline, right? Like it's like a sanitation of of things has to happen because not you know it's all over the place kind of thing. Exactly. And so what we do in that instance is we we can
31:00 - 31:30 connect in and see the state of that and then give you a policy summary in comparison to what it would be to use um one of the existing runbooks and policies that we've created. And also uh the other like byproduct of this is intune actually because of all of its detailed interface around all the things if you've built something that you like in in tune you can suck it in and use that as a configuration as a consolidated configuration uh to push it
31:30 - 32:00 back down. And so we're not I said like we're just automating the things to get done in in tune and so at the end of the day what is in intune is the right thing. Yeah. and we can suck it out of that and manage it. And what does management mean? Management means making sure that it's consistent, having a copy of it, so having revisions. Um because of course, you know, there is no backup for in tune, right? Default. Why? Why? Why is that? I mean, Microsoft, you
32:00 - 32:30 know, like everyone else in the tech industry says back everything up. Actually, I think for a long time, I don't know if it's still there, but they would actually have in their terms of service that you need to use a third party to back it up. Like just curious why there isn't a default backup option. That is a very good question. That's probably outside of my pay grade. Um the uh but you know, it does create an opportunity for people like Devicey uh to come in and and to be able to do that because if they did everything, of
32:30 - 33:00 course, then um where would we be? And um so yes that's fair. So so we're innovating in this space and and to go back to those competitors there's a number of people who are you know taking this Microsoft 365 first approach right and it's a huge impressible market and makes a lot of sense. Um, and it's interesting. I was talking to um, one of my colleagues the other day and we were talking about the what the competitive
33:00 - 33:30 landscape looks like for us and we obviously know the players who we know and respect them and you know obviously keep an eye on them, right? Um, but then you know you think about the other people the enables I know the enable team really well. John Pegalyuka was the CFO at um Logic Now, right? Um back in the day. So, he's uh he's been around and um we're good friends and you know, you look at those kind of guys. Uh the same investment team that's behind Device is
33:30 - 34:00 the the team behind uh Cassa and Datau. Um so we know that space really really well and they are you know Microsoft they're Microsoft's competition right they're not devices competition if you think about it that way right the thing the RMM space is more likely to be impacted by Microsoft changing licensing in ways that are preferential to MSPs than it is
34:00 - 34:30 anything devicey evidence and so Um and and we firmly believe that that's where Microsoft is taking the journey and they understand they're learning what MSPs are. They have people who are spending time and effort on this and um you know that that's that's kind of what we're that's what we're the bet on, right? No, I I I totally get it. I mean at the end of the day you know micro
34:30 - 35:00 Microsoft's internal efforts in my opinion the way it's always been explained to me is they're they want to deal with the enterprise they want to deal with the thousand plus500 2000 plus right like that's where they want to spend their direct resources they claim that half their revenue comes from their partner network but I don't know how to quantify it other than to take their word for it on a keynote right I mean at the end of the day um I think where the MS let's go back and let's go back and still separate. Procurement is not
35:00 - 35:30 bringing to market, right? And particularly in our modern marketplace world, right? The marketplace is how you can procure and manage your expenses, right? And that is a that is that is a procurement vehicle largely. Now, what it does and how that licensing works for a given area is completely inside their control, right? you know, uh this recent E5 on top of BP is very much an indicator uh to that to that market that
35:30 - 36:00 it's not going to increase their direct revenue. Um you know, Microsoft sellers, I think it's only like the top 2,000 accounts that have any kind of representation of everything else's channel, right? Um but the things they do at product, the things they do particularly around licensing and um what things can be used in the bundle, right? and how the bundle shaped are very much SMC, SMB and MSP. I mean like there's things they can do in
36:00 - 36:30 that area which will directly influence and they have the power to do that. No, I I get that. I mean big picture though. I mean the majority back to the most people are using a very very very small subset, right? Like if I were to say the average MSP's end customer is probably using email, teams, one drive, uh maybe you know sharepoint and one drive, you know, kind of cross over there. So let's just put that in the same category. And
36:30 - 37:00 um very I know very few MSP customers are using Power Automate, you know, are using Microsoft forms, Microsoft Bookings, micro like I could keep going. There's so many like micro apps, right? Yeah. I mean there's there's so many pieces that are in there that they should be using and they're paying for, right? You know, the number of business premium people who are not using defender for endpoint is most of them I think and so there's a lot of
37:00 - 37:30 opportunity there and that's where that consolidation going back to the start. That's why bundling from a you know a price and and a value growth comes in. And you know particularly part of the storyline you'll always hear is with co-pilot you've got to have your environment correctly set up right and therefore co c co c co c co c co c co c co c co c co c co c co-pilot means you got to have a wellestablished shareepoint right in order to manage things well. And so if
37:30 - 38:00 you're doing that then why you know why wouldn't you be using something like purview and the the level of complexity is beyond most organizations and frankly it's beyond a lot of um MSPs as well right um oh yeah 100% that that that's not a you know it's just a different game a different world uh that I I believe we are going into No fair I mean I I'm gonna be honest with you I mean I talked to a lot of MSPs I'm
38:00 - 38:30 sure you do too. I'm not so sure the co-pilot adoption so far from an MSB standpoint is very high. Like as of today, it's April 24th, 25. I I could probably I I would even go I'm going to this is a guesstimate total guesstimate, right? Less than 15% of MSPs have deployed Copilot internal and or deployed it to their end in my opinion. Yep. Well, one of the problems
38:30 - 39:00 was you couldn't actually use co-pilot across multi-tenants, right? And so co-pilot for security um would only be on each individual tenant. So each individual customer would have to have their own copilot for security. That's changed, right, from a uh how that license works. And so that's another sign of Microsoft acknowledging the the MSP multi-tenant piece within there. And so yeah, and we're very early we're very
39:00 - 39:30 early games in in in all of this area. And um uh agentic management is just super early and the the rate of just the rate of innovation going on in that space um is is just amazing. It's I mean I've been around say too long, right? Um, and you know, this this is this is even more gamechanging than people starting to actually use data
39:30 - 40:00 correctly to understand what's going on in accounts, right? Uh, and understand the behaviors. I've always been a bleeding edge guy. Like I just love playing with toys, right? Like that's always been why I was so excited about technology in general. I feel like it's a little we're still in the wild wild west here on this topic specifically and my big concern and I know I've said it a thousand times on these on these podcasts but it's one
40:00 - 40:30 thing if I'm using this new technology and AI co-pilot whatever you want to call it to help backend things right like help me do more with less right but if it's customerf facing saying, "I'm still a little bit gunshy that I'm going to get a consistent result today." Agreed. But if I can make an IT technician be uh more capable, um i.e.
40:30 - 41:00 have skills that they didn't have, right? um or if I can take an even more expensive resource who's got the skills and knowledge and actually enable him to do it in a fraction of the time, then those two things are incredibly powerful to the MSP space, which at the end of the day is a labor arbitrage business. And so labor is absolutely the number one thing that you need to pay attention to in terms of productivity. And um that's where it's going to come. But I'd
41:00 - 41:30 really love one of the one of the design patterns that Microsoft has within security profiler. Um, is that you ask it something, it tells you this is the answer to what you want to do and shows you and then you make the decision about whether you run it. And so it it keeps the person informed in the process. And that that to me is is the state of where we're at right now, which is, you know, it's like you ask it
41:30 - 42:00 the question and it's basically doing very fast research for you and giving you a recommendation and okay, so if it's not quite right, you can kind of see what it came up with, right? And go, yeah, okay, I get the idea of what it's going, but I didn't actually mean that. I meant something else, right? Or it didn't understand me correctly. And that to me is the big the big productivity gain. You know, you're taking things that that take people a lot of time and really really getting getting so much faster. Sure. And and and I'm with you
42:00 - 42:30 there, right? Because it still keeps the human being in the driver's seat. Just more information available to them faster. Right. Yeah. It's the brilliance of why they called it co-pilot. No, I'm I'm with you. And I think the marketing was good. My concern is where somebody's effectively creating a virtual agent and trying to displace the end customer's experience to offset the labor. And so this is where I'm just like, wait a wait a minute, wait a minute. I don't know
42:30 - 43:00 about you, I've been tainted for years calling in and like zero like get get me get me to a human being. I don't want to talk to the answering you to the computer, right? Like I just want to talk to a human being that can answer my question and like how many times did I get lost in the tree, you know, and then just hang up and have to start over because I got nowhere, right? Like yeah, that I think it's an uphill battle, right? Because this is the experience people remember.
43:00 - 43:30 Yes. Um I attended I was at Microsoft Ignite uh last year in Chicago. Um, obviously we're very Microsoft, so we're at these things. And one of the sessions I sat in at the conference was um an AI session with AT&T and it was fascinating like they have something over two and a half thousand AI agents that they've written and this has enabled them to be able to do
43:30 - 44:00 escalated without escalation. And so there's many systems that the lower tier um B personnel couldn't have access to because they were specific systems and difficult to get to etc etc. And they've wrapped them in in agents. And so many questions can now be answered that couldn't previously be but would require escalation previously. And escalation is both time and money, right? We know that. And it's escalation typically is not the best customer experience either,
44:00 - 44:30 right? could you want it fixed immediately and and straight up front. And so to me, that's that's where we're going in the short term is how do I make things more efficient and more accessible to many more people, right? And and then work through from there. Okay. So, but in that use case that you just mentioned with AT&T, it sounds like that was an internal resource, not an end customerf facing resource, right? But if you go on their website and you do things like certain key tasks, right?
44:30 - 45:00 Um they are it is equally servicing self-service, right? Okay. So I you know obviously mileage is going to vary based on the situation. Correct. And and again you know in the IT space there's some things that make sense, right? But there's a lot of things that don't make sense and still require require the human there. But from an MSP perspective, you know, I look at it and go, how do we make how do we make your business more efficient?
45:00 - 45:30 You know, how do we keep, you know, at the end of the day, customers don't want a lot from us? What they want is secure and productive devices, right? That's it for the most part, right? Well, that and when they need help, they can get to help quickly. Yes. But at the end of the day, if the machine is secure and productive and does what it's meant to do all the time, right? Then, you know, that's that's a a little more, you know, there's a lot less connection that's going on. And so, no, I I I the you
45:30 - 46:00 know, the funny line I would say to to respond to that is, well, the MSP is in business because Microsoft stuff doesn't always work. Exactly. Right. and and so you you you need the tooling that gets them there, right? And then you want to be spending your time and effort dealing with mitigating the unknowns, right? And the the challenges that are
46:00 - 46:30 that are coming on through it. It's an oversimplification of it, but at the end of the day, it is an efficiency play that you've kind of got to broadly think about. and all the tools whether or not you're dealing with RMMs. You go back in the his whole history of of the MSP space was all about how do I how do I do more of this right um in a more effective way than somebody hiring somebody. No, that's fair. That's fair. So So Device can help you with new
46:30 - 47:00 customer deployments. There's all these templates and workflows that just go into Microsoft and configure it the way it's supposed to be based on the vertical potentially for whatever the end customer is. There's also a let me go into what you already have. Let me see what it is and let me tell you what you could do to make it better or fix it. I'm just going to use that as a term. And then generally speaking though, how does your M like does device just work with MSPs? Is it, hey, we work
47:00 - 47:30 with MSP and we work with businesses directly? How does the program differ if that's the case? Just curious how it's laid out. Yeah, it's interesting. Um, we actually the same product whether you're a direct or whether you're a uh an organization who is using engaging devices directly. Let's again not talk about how you procured it, right? Um but you know yeah whether you're a a small medium corporation smallmedium business
47:30 - 48:00 or MSP it's the same product and we made that decision because you know as we went through it we discovered that a lot of those same behaviors exist in in both organization sets and um it made more sense to have a consistent experience so that we're not kind of branching something off ah well you need this or you don't need that or or whatever house right which um you know that kind of feature turning on and off thing it becomes very annoying uh for
48:00 - 48:30 organizations when they know but but you guys can do this why can't I do that right it's like so no it's one product works uh universally across it and if you go back to the like we're about secure and productive endpoints so what does that mean getting it like it's easy to talk about new machine deployment how do you do that efficiently nobody wants to reboot four times right So a correctly set up um autopilot that that runs and gets your machine with the key apps on it and all running in 20 minutes
48:30 - 49:00 that's pretty standard right application management. So patching application management again in tune has that capability but um you know how it works and and getting that application bundled and patched and everything else we do all of that for people at the end of the day any gap for the SMC or the MSP in the you know in the Microsoft ecosystem we're there to fill those gaps right and um and make the use of you know business
49:00 - 49:30 premium E3 E5 as uh as productive as possible. Got it. So the MSP signs up and then is it based on how many customers, how many seats, how many 365 licenses like how does the mechanism of how your platform let's talk about business model then. So um obviously MSPs are different than small medium business than direct
49:30 - 50:00 customers. That's it. Well, then direct organizations, let's call call it that. And so we have the kind of licensing that organizations want where it's tiered. They don't want to be getting a bill that varies each month based on how many, you know, employees they've got or whatever. They want a consistent pricing um etc. So you can buy in that way, you know, how many, you know, 250, 500, a thousand seats, whatever. And it's it's done. And then we have MSP pricing, which is per seat because that's the business model that they want to be in for the most part. um whether or not you
50:00 - 50:30 agree with that or not, but anyway, that's the business model they're in. And um and so we we offer both of those kind of pricing models. We offer it by uh the Azure marketplace. We work through distribution. Um so um we'll be TD Cynics in the US with Crayon um in A&Z. Um and um we'll be at uh tax 8 beyond which gives you an indicator of where else we might be appearing soon. Um and um you
50:30 - 51:00 know so procurement is we want to be in the places where people want to buy and that shouldn't be that shouldn't be the barrier uh to it. um we align usage with your your Microsoft licenses. So um we don't really it's not really about how many devices you could have 10 devices like I think you're running today in this uh in this uh podcast um or but but we care about like how many Microsoft seats have you got because
51:00 - 51:30 that's where we aligned. Got it. And then is it consumptionbased and like is it or or is it tiered in any way or like gen both models are available depending on the business that you're in. It tends to make more sense for MSPs if they are deploying it across many customers to use the consumption based because then uh they get the economies of scale that come from that and um as opposed to tiered. Um some other players in the in
51:30 - 52:00 the market uh work around tenant um as opposed to user um but you know as I said earlier part of what we offer is uh informed and opinionated about the whole environment and we're we're trusted advisers as well as being software and you know that's got to scale based on the size of organization etc and so cons you know use it user license based is is the kind of model that works. Listen, that's how Microsoft does it.
52:00 - 52:30 We're just going to keep, you know, why break the system if it works, right? Like, totally get that. Yeah. Um, and then does the MSP in a consumption model have to agree to a term like a one-year term or or how does that work? Um, we are obviously um we're always open to having like we're a startup, right? And so, um, we're not Microsoft when it comes to it. You can't knock on Microsoft's door and say, you know, hey,
52:30 - 53:00 can we do it this way today? And, uh, they're not going to do that. But obviously, um, there are, you know, opportunities to do different things because there are different business models out there, uh, within it. So yeah, we um were very flexible around terms and um licensing levels, ramps, and all of those different sales tools uh that people will use to um you know to be successful. You mentioned earlier the
53:00 - 53:30 ser the the service delivery part of it, right? Like the extension of the MSP. So like how does the MSP engage you in terms of you know help in order to provision or support or how does that experience work? Yeah. Yeah. So what we've actually done is we have integrated our support desk into the product and we're gradually adding it to more and more places. And so things like um so basically you run the tickets
53:30 - 54:00 inside um inside the product and the knowledge base inside it. And no surprise where we're going with that is, you know, a co-pilot like experience where you can, you know, use a chatbot type interface to talk to the system from a ticket perspective and um as well as kind of action perspective in there and then um you know there's humans behind the scenes uh that are looking at things as well as kind of interacting
54:00 - 54:30 back around that. Gotcha. You mentioned uh A&Z versus North America. I I assume Europe is probably somewhere coming soon if not already in the works. You know, that's where the MSPs are, those general three zones. Yeah. So, the background of the company is it was founded in Sydney, Australia. It came out of an it came out it came out of an MSP um and um inside invested in uh 2021.
54:30 - 55:00 Okay. Right. Yeah, 2022. Can't remember something somewhere around there. I should remember that. I don't know why I've suddenly blanked on it. Anyway, um and then I joined um about a year year and a half ago, just under a year and a half ago, and um we we've opened up the the US operation from there. I'm uh we've uh chosen Pamper as our headquarters for North American operation, but we're a distributed team
55:00 - 55:30 still. um and um growing out of there and then we we have customers everywhere. So we have customers in um obviously a good concentration in Australia and New Zealand but then across the US and uh in Europe and um that's awesome available available via the marketplaces makes it uh very easy to transact. So again something I'd heard you talk about was uh the currency fluctuations and all of that kind of stuff. Well, not only have you got that
55:30 - 56:00 complexity, you've also got the the tax issues around the world, etc. So, you know, uh having organizations like Pax 8, like Crayon, like TD Senate, like Microsoft as your marketplace, um be that storefront um for a startup um just makes your life a lot easier. No, for sure. For sure. I It's just It's so interesting. Uh uh throughout my journey, some of the best companies in the MSP sandbox came from an MSP trying
56:00 - 56:30 to build something that didn't exist, right? And like that's where these awesome ideas come from and great companies come behind them. Um that's real interesting that Insight invested what seems like pretty early into this one, but uh that's cool. Yeah. And we just announced um last week that they've they just reinvested um and it's uh yeah
56:30 - 57:00 it's you know they've got um I just go back they've got a lot of depth of knowledge and certainly over the time I've been with them and it goes well beyond that they've got a lot of depth of knowledge on this space at the different levels of it. you know, if you look at what they've owned and sold and you look at what they currently have invested, for instance, another one is Coreview is another insight company, right? Um, in and around this space, they they have a lot of understanding
57:00 - 57:30 and um and as investors, you know, their job is to make bets, right? and to help grow companies and you know they see what we're doing and and uh where we're doing it and how we're doing it and they see that opportunity um they are well aware of what Microsoft's up to and um yeah makes yeah they're they're a lot don't want this to come over the wrong way they're a lot smarter than people give them credit for not just fiscally right I mean I I know we're
57:30 - 58:00 kind of at the tail end of this but unfortunately the average MSP P buyer or partner, whatever, however you want to define it, they only experience insight downstream, right? Like through the company that they're engaged with, right? So, for example, if the average MSP only knows Insight as the people behind the Cassa conglomerate, like who is the face of that for 10 years? Fred. Fred's not there anymore. So, like that's all they
58:00 - 58:30 see, right? That was the public face of the company. Yeah. Yes. So that's that's that's part of it. That's Yeah. And you know, seeing what seeing where they bet early to build these things that became these big companies, right, is is is the other part of that. Yeah. You're talking about the I like to call it the Shark Tank approach, right? Where they're like, "Hey, you know, I'm just this is a
58:30 - 59:00 cliche. I'm just going to use it. But it's like, hey, if I make 10 bets, I just need two to win. And the other eight, if they they don't work out, then I'm still okay. I still made out, right? You I think your position, it sounds like, is Insight has a much better track record than two out of 10 because they have been around in this space for so long, they can make a pretty educated bet based on actual data. We could go on, we could go on for a long time on this, but if you just look back at GFI and the GFI group of
59:00 - 59:30 companies and I think it was, I think we did 26 acquisitions that were backed by Insight um and picking up the pieces that has now become what Enable is, what Team Viewer is, um, uh, etc. So, yeah, super. It's it's there's a there's a lot behind the scenes on it. Yeah. Oh, well, you know, it's what maybe one day we can like peel that on your back just a little bit more, right? Because I think
59:30 - 60:00 that's it's fascinating to me, right? Like the magic, which is really is sounds like it's more science, right, than magic, right? So, y yeah, there's a lot there's a lot of interesting things in there, but for sure, great to talk to you. I know we're we're at time. Uh yes, absolutely. Enjoy your trip. Um, and um, hopefully I'll be able to get back to New York. Sounds good. See you later on this year, I hope. And uh, everyone, the session was recorded. You'll find
60:00 - 60:30 mspinitiative.com. Check out Devicey at device.com. Yeah, there it is. And if you're just listening to the audio version, Device spelled D V I C I E. No Y's. So devicey.com. Check that out. Colin, thank you very much. Very interesting conversation. We'll talk to you later on. Thank you.