What a day it was – building on the Pre-Conference energy (packed training sessions! an exciting Customer Success Council including sneak previews and demos! a world-class M&A Symposium!), Tuesday at Kaseya Connect Global gave more proof that this conference is a must-attend for MSPs and internal IT teams.
Powerful keynotes.
Fred Voccola, CEO, Kaseya, outlined Kaseya’s vision for IT Complete – and as I heard after from various attendees, that vision resonated. As noted by Joe Panettieri in Channel e2e, the investment Kaseya is making in workflow integrations between native Kaseya products and acquisitions is unparalleled. SMBs are increasingly relying on technology to manage, grow, and protect their businesses, and MSPs are instrumental in very small businesses getting value from tech. Internal IT teams similarly will benefit from workflow integration, while Kaseya keeping the platform open means IT can still use the non-Kaseya products they may be using now. The advantage of adopting the Kaseya stack is, of course, efficiency. Workflow integration across Kaseya’s acquisitions makes technicians more efficient, helping MSPs scale and helping internal IT teams do more without adding people.
Mike Puglia, Chief Customer Marketing Officer, Kaseya, showed that Kaseya’s vision for IT Complete is real now – and will grow in the future. Mike showed how integrated workflows do and will create new efficiencies. For example, by embedding IT Glue within BMS, the moment a technician needs documentation, the info is presented to the tech. Integrations also enable one-click secure access, where rights are assigned to login without giving the technician access to passwords, and where rights expire at the end of a working session. In addition to workflow integrations now and in the future, IT Complete means aligning and modernizing GUIs and look-and-feel across brands. VSA is one of the first to undergo such a modernization.
Insight-filled security discussions.
Keren Elazari, internationally renowned security expert, opened eyes and minds by sharing what we can learn from hackers. She described how hackers taught her, as a new computer aficionado, all about computing and coding. Since 1995, she’s been inspired by and ultimately joined the ranks of “friendly” (ethical) hackers.
Ms. Elazari was part of the riveting security panel discussion that followed, joining Paul Lupo, Harry Perper, Nicholas Streaker, and Jim Lippie. Some of the topics covered:
- What are the biggest security threats to SMBs? Replies were varied, from the constant, 24/7 nature of attacks, targeting everyone and every potential vulnerability (Harry) to the explosion of risk and the lack of people to combat the risk (Keren).
- What role will automation play in cybersecurity, especially considering the lack of trained people? Ultimately, it will always require a combination of automation and people; cybersecurity is “an art and a science,” according to Keren, and the other panelists generally agreed.
- What innovation will tip the scales – for good guys or for bad guys? All the panelists except Keren said that the biggest innovation which will tip the scales – for BOTH good guys and bad guys – is artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI). AI will make attacks self-learning, driving ever-faster evolution of the threat landscape. Keren had a different perspective – though the innovation of bug bounty programs, we can engage friendly hackers the world over in making every hackable device more secure.
Breaking news and announcements.
With the announcement of Powered Services 2.0, featuring ID Agent’s battle-tested Goal Assist, MSPs attending Kaseya Connect Global got front-row seats to the sorts of innovation that’s happening as IT Complete builds. To learn more, see this blog post.
Day Two of the first-ever Mission Possible.
It’s impossible not to be excited as teams compete for bragging rights and a sweet $5,000, using Kaseya’s IT Complete offerings to meet Mission Possible challenges. Although we couldn’t capture photos of the teams hard at play before our blog deadline, we hope to share photos of the winners soon!
The Connected Party!
For those who attended, there was a rare opportunity to not only network and build relationships…but to chat with The Mother of Dragons (or her doppelgänger).
If you haven’t yet requested a demo of one or all of Kaseya’s IT Complete offerings, do it now – simply email [email protected] to get started.
