14 Hot Products And Services For MSPs Right Now

Attendees at The Channel Company’s XChange 2024 conference this month in San Antonio were treated to a first look at a wide range of new hardware, software and services aimed at helping them breathe new life into the offerings they bring their customers.

MSPs have a lot of great technology at their disposal these days.

And after the latest XChange conference in San Antonio, MSP attendees were left with even more options.

The conference, hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company, was full of keynotes, panel discussions and breakout sessions featuring a wide range of information aimed at helping MSPs prepare for the future of managed services, with a special emphasis on security and AI.

MSP executives looking to sell their businesses also learned what they need to do to prepare for a successful sale, while many attendees also learned vital legal information to use when writing master sales agreements.

And then there were new products. MSPs at XChange August 2024 had the opportunity to see a wide range of products aimed at helping them provide managed services. Many of those products were shown at the conference for the first time.

While security was a key focus, other products and services highlighted at the conference included storage, MSP tools and services.

CRN rounded up 14 of the hottest products and services aimed at the MSP community from XChange August 2024. Here’s what is now available or soon to be available to MSPs.

AirSlate

AirSlate is a document-generating product for business documents. There are six web-based applications, including a PDF editing solution and a document generating offering. Customers can perform basic PDF edits and create advanced contracts with the click of a button without human intervention.

Key features include drag-and-drop workflow design, customizable document templates and integration with other software systems. AirSlate aims to enhance efficiency by automating repetitive tasks, improving document handling and ensuring compliance through its comprehensive and user-friendly interface. It’s used across various industries to reduce manual effort, minimize errors and accelerate business processes.

Thread

Thread develops a service experience platform that sits between MSPs and their customers to simplify the support process by automatically creating a ticket in the MSP’s PSA and tracking the entire conversation as a way to resolve support issues 30 percent faster through chat than other means, said Stephen Boss (pictured), head of customer success for the company.

“Some MSPs have their clients message them in Teams or Slack directly, but those are usually direct messaging their technicians, so nothing is tracked to a ticket,” Boss told CRN. “So things get lost. It’s chaotic, and the customer ends up with a bad experience because it’s not tracked.”

Thread provides an AI inbox capability to help technicians respond quickly and not worry about the details of managing a ticket, Boss said. “Our AI does a lot of that heavy lifting for them,” he said. “We’ll fully triage incoming service requests from their customers. We’ll set the priority type, subtype and item; categorize the ticket; and write the time entries for the techs to make their lives a lot easier so they can just focus on solving the issue rather than the ticket management.”

Thread used XChange to introduce a new tool it calls Planner, a part of its AI inboxing capability that lets MSPs schedule out work for their technicians, which allows easy dragging and dropping of the technician into available time slots, Boss said.

“When a new service request comes in, we can detect what the user is asking for,” he said. “Let’s say the user has a serious security breach or needs to urgently off-board or on-board someone at their company. Our AI detects what the user is asking for. MSPs can set their own rules with the AI around how they prioritize things manually today.”

Todyl

Todyl’s cybersecurity platform spans a number of key segments including SASE (secure access service edge), endpoint security, SIEM (security information and event management), managed XDR (extended detection and response), SOAR (security orchestration, automation and response) and governance, risk and compliance. However, Ken Patterson, director of community at Todyl, noted that the offerings can be purchased individually and can be turned on easily thanks to the vendor’s single-agent approach. “Once you have the agent set up and installed, you can click on any other [tool] and load it immediately,” Patterson told CRN. “And the beauty of this is you can use some of our competitors for other solutions and still use the solutions that we have at the same time. Our [platform] will take their reports and ingest them.”

Axcient

Axcient provides business continuity and disaster recovery technology exclusively through MSPs and just recently topped the 5,000 mark in terms of number of channel partners, working with such MSP platform providers as Pax8, ConnectWise and Ctera, said Tim Sheahan (left in photo), senior vice president of global sales.

The company is focused on making sure it provides business continuity and disaster recovery technology to as many MSP clients as possible, so early this year Axcient introduced new clients for Linux and Apple Macintosh users and is now working on providing data protection for NAS devices. An early release version of its technology for NAS users is slated to be available this quarter with full release slated for next year, Sheahan told CRN.

Bryce Roberts (right in photo), vice president of marketing for Axcient, told CRN the company is also in early access with new APIs to provide business continuity and disaster recovery technology via other technology partners such as Nerdio and MSPs looking to do their own custom integrations into their PSA platforms.

Roberts also said that Axcient in October will hold its virtual MSP Experience Summit featuring the company’s latest road map as well as breakout sessions and panels and expects to have over 1,000 partners register for the event.

4me

4me is a cloud-based IT service management and enterprise service management platform designed to help MSPs improve service delivery and collaboration across organizations. It offers features for managing incidents, requests, changes and problems and extends capabilities to other departments like HR, facilities and finance.

4me focuses on providing a unified service management experience with a strong emphasis on automation, efficiency and integration. Features include self-service portals, real-time reporting and multi-language support, all to enhance productivity and ensure high-quality service delivery across various business functions.

Sophos MDR

Sophos showcased its managed detection and response (MDR) offering, which spans a range of areas within the customer environment from endpoints and networks to email and the cloud. This is crucial for protecting against external and internal threats, according to Sophos. For instance, the vendor’s broad range of capabilities can be crucial to shutting down insider attacks, said Scott Barlow, vice president of global MSP and cloud alliances at Sophos. “If there’s a threat on an unprotected device, our firewall can actually talk to our endpoint and isolate an endpoint internally to prevent that lateral propagation,” Barlow told CRN. In addition, network detection and response—which integrates with MDR—“will actually detect IoT devices and whatever traffic is within the network where you can’t put a sensor,” he said.

WhiteDog

WhiteDog, which was born a year ago as a spinout from MSP DataEndure, develops a composable cybersecurity stack specifically for indirect channel partners looking to offer white-labeled managed security, said Shahin Pirooz, founder of the company.

WhiteDog currently uses a mix of 45 commercial and open-source technologies to bring about 20 products with about three or four editions each to help MSPs with endpoint security, email security, DNS security and zero trust security, all layered over with 24x7 security operations, Pirooz told CRN.

“We actually do threat hunting where we’re literally looking at every alert and inspecting if it’s real or not,” he said. “We look at things that may not be an alert but should have been an alert, and identify, classify.”

WhiteDog used XChange to show its recently launched multi-PSA integration, Pirooz said.

“So whatever PSA an MSP is using, they can integrate with us,” he said. We work with the top three brands: ConnectWise, Kaseya and Datto’s Autotask. But we’ve also done it through an open framework so if there’s anything that we don’t have, we will be able to integrate with it. It takes us just weeks to set up a new one.”

WhiteDog is also now working with Glasshive to provide Silver-level and higher partners with free marketing materials, outbound communications, lead generation and CRM functionality, he said.

Wasabi

Data protection cloud storage provider Wasabi used XChange to introduce MSPs to the results of the company’s new Cloud Storage Index research study, which Andrew Smith, director of strategy and market intelligence, said looks at some of the current challenges users and partners face, including billing complexity and fees.

One result of the survey is that only half of customers’ typical cloud storage bills are based on the actual stored capacity, while the other half is based on other fees. The survey also found that 90 percent of customers are satisfied with their cloud storage service, regardless of vendor. This, Smith told CRN, compares with the 60 percent to 80 percent of customers satisfied with SaaS applications in general.

“This just shows how cloud storage is inherently easy to use,” he said. “You’re taking away any sort of hardware purchase and regress. You’re taking away having to turn all the knobs and dials on your systems. You’re taking away the complexity of managing stored data and having to deliver it to different applications.”

New from Wasabi is multiuser authentication, which means it requires multiple security contacts to agree to deactivate or delete an account to help prevent unauthorized or accidental deletion of accounts, Smith said. The company is also opening a new storage region in Italy, giving it 13 regions worldwide, he said. Wasabi is expanding its S3-compatible API set as well, he said.

Smith also said Wasabi by year-end will be protecting 2 exabytes of customer data. The company is also expanding its relationship with strategic partners, particularly Acronis, this year, he said.

Huntress Managed SIEM

Huntress touted its new managed SIEM (security information and event management) offering that aims to be a less complicated and more affordable alternative focused on the unique needs of MSPs and their SMB customers. Key differentiators for the Huntress managed SIEM offering include using highly efficient data collection and retention techniques to keep costs predictable and minimal, which is crucial for service providers. That allows Huntress to eliminate significant amounts of data that have minimal security relevance, according to the company.

Atera

Atera is a cloud-based RMM and PSA platform that combines tools for remote monitoring, ticketing, billing and customer management into a single offering. Features include real-time monitoring of IT assets, automated alerts and remediation, a ticketing system and integrated billing and reporting.

Atera streamlines IT operations, enhances service delivery and improves profitability by providing a comprehensive suite of tools that support technical and administrative tasks. Its user-friendly interface and scalability make it suitable for businesses of various sizes.

Crewhu

Crewhu, which gives MSPs an awards-based platform for managing customer satisfaction and soliciting employee recognition, has rebranded its Metric Bridge, introduced earlier this year, as Crewhu Trends, said Ryan Denning, vice president of sales for the company.

Crewhu Trends provides a way to automate and run contests based on any KPI from any third-party software as long as it has an open API, Denning told CRN.

Denning said to assume an MSP wanted to do a Fitbit challenge for its office. “You could say, ‘Hey, we’re going to have a step contest this month. Whatever employee gets the most steps this month is going to win a gift card,’” he said. “The MSP could connect employees’ Fitbits into Crewhu Trends and run and automate that contest as soon as it’s hooked up.”

That Fitbit contest was an actual example from an MSP, he said.

Over the next few months, Crewhu will be slowly redoing its entire user interface, Denning said. The company has already revamped its Net Promoter Score capability, which he said is aimed at helping MSPs get more Google reviews. The company will be adding new modules over time along with more analytics, he said.

AlertOps

AlertOps is a cloud-based incident management and response platform designed to enhance operational efficiency and coordination during critical events. It focuses on automating and streamlining incident response processes to ensure timely resolution and minimize downtime.

Features include real-time incident alerts, automated escalation workflows, multi-channel communication (such as SMS, email and voice) and integration with various monitoring and IT service management tools. AlertOps works to improve collaboration among response teams, facilitate faster decision-making and provide comprehensive reporting and analytics to drive continual improvement in incident management practices.

Buffalo Americas

Buffalo Americas used XChange 2024 to highlight its TeraStation 7000 series of 12-bay NAS and iSCSI storage systems, which were formally introduced at the same event last year. Bill Rhodes, channel sales leader, told CRN that the company was surprised to see how quickly the devices grew with midmarket customers who were looking to expand storage on constrained budgets, particularly with media content creation customers.

“That market is new on our radar, and we’ve had people fitting us into it,” he said. “A couple of production studios, like local radio and TV studios, brought that use case to us for 8K video files. One guy on a recent call was telling me that when he records in 8K video, one second of video takes 200 terabytes of storage. In order to get a 30-minute broadcast, he needs 18 hours of recording. Do the math. And that’s video that can’t be put in the cloud.”

Going forward, Buffalo is adding ransomware detection it calls Unusual File Activity Monitoring, Rhodes said. “It’s looking for file structure changes that are unauthorized,” he said. “When ransomware gets a hold of something, it works the file and encrypts it. This is going to notify you right off the bat if this happens. And it’s completely free with the firmware update. So that’s coming on the 7000 and then our tiered system, the 5000 series for entry-level enterprises.”

Fortinet FortiEDR

While more known for its network security and SASE offerings, Fortinet also offers endpoint security with its endpoint detection and response (EDR) tool, FortiEDR. The product offers a wide array of capabilities, including in IT hygiene (asset discovery, asset assessment and USB control); endpoint protection (next-generation antivirus, post-execution protection, cloud sandbox and web filtering); and EDR (advanced forensics, AI-powered investigation, automated integrated incident response and threat hunting).