Today, Kaseya announced the release of Version 7.0, which offers enhancements to the company’s cloud, mobility management and core IT solutions. In particular, the 365 Command, Virtual System Administrator, Traverse, and Enterprise Mobility Management solutions were enhanced in today’s release. I was able to speak with Tom Hayes, Kaseya’s VP of Product Marketing, late last week, and he ran me through some of Version 7.0’s features.
To begin, it’s worth noting again that Kaseya has made some great strides in the way that it rolls out new releases. When I spoke to Kaseya CMO, Loren Jarrett in March, she mentioned that the company had implemented the new agile development process which allows for streamlined testing and roll outs of new versions to users. Though Kaseya reps have been calling this process “aggressive,” I tend to view it more as “polished,” as the releases so far have come out smoothly, and they have all been well-received by the Kaseya community. Speaking of community, Tom let me know that Kaseya lists an upcoming version roadmap on its community site for partners to know what to expect. As of today’s writing, they have the outlines for Version 8.0, set for release this September, as well as mentions of the three releases slated for January, May and September of 2015.
Let’s get on to the Version 7.0 features. First of all, Tom let me know that this is the world’s fastest remote client management solution to date. This allows IT Pros to better resolve issues remotely. In fact, the remote management connections are near instantaneous, and are based on persistent connection technology, which utilizes the same video codec as Hulu and Netflix to make a primary connection, then it leverages a server-to-client connection for reliability. In addition, the connection is constantly communicating with the agents, and most importantly, it’s lightweight.
Why the emphasis on speed and reliability? Well, according to Tom, faster and more reliable connections mean happier end users. “When it comes to business today, even seconds can matter and make or break an organization,” said Tom in our interview. Also, Kaseya Version 7.0 has increased functionality to make sure that IT Managers can work to fix issues before they ever hit the end user. Here are a few more features of Version 7.0:
- Addition of SharePoint management to Kaseya’s 365 Command solution: This update allows users to view important Team Site, access, Document Library information, as well as info on who has been using the site, and how, and when everything was last accessed, from a single, clean dashboard.
- Integrated Network Monitoring for the Virtual System Administrator (VSA) solution: The update here is a new summary dashboard with easy drilldown for Admins.
- Updates to Views on Kaseya Traverse: Primarily, the view is now optimized for mobile, and is presented in HTML5, available for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices. These views provide high level information about network health to admins while they are away from the office.
- Expansion of Kaseya’s MDM and BYOD Suite management solutions: These two have now been moved into one comprehensive solution, Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) which has the features of both the MDM and BYOD Suite, plus support for Android devices, integration with app stores and Active Directory listings, and improved policy management.
- Integration with the latest version of Intuit QuickBooks into Kaseya’s Automation Desk solution.
“IT environments are becoming increasingly complex and the rapid adoption of mobile and cloud technologies is making the task of managing IT even more challenging,” said Yogesh Gupta, President and CEO of Kaseya. “With its new capabilities, version 7.0 of the Kaseya portfolio of products is redefining the IT Management industry for MSPs and mid-market enterprises. Further, customers can obtain immediate value, high reliability, and a lower TCO using Kaseya’s leading cloud-based IT management offering.”
Kaseya’s VSA, EMM and Traverse solutions are available either in the Cloud or as an on-premise solution. The 365 Command solution is only available in the Cloud. Tom let me know last week that they are seeing more and more of their customers (up to 60% now) prefer to have their solutions in the Cloud.
