VARs Mixed About Ingram Micro's Latest MSP Move

"This is part of our strategy to incorporate a lot of these comprehensive reseller business process tools so that resellers can ... start to put together managed services to offer to their customers," said Justin Crotty, vice president of services at Ingram Micro North America.

The distributor is tapping an established New York-based MSP to run a pair of new hosted products they co-developed to complement the Santa Ana, Calif.-based distributor's Seismic managed services offerings.

Synergy, in Rochester, N.Y., will operate Ingram's Seismic Managed Help Desk and Managed NOC, which Ingram announced today would be available to the channel along with Seismic-integrated PSA software from Autotask and hosted e-mail and Web filtering powered by MX Logic. Synergy's NOC is located in Buffalo, N.Y.

"We can service alerts from any platform," said Synergy president Clark Crook, addressing one concern an MSP contacted by CRN expressed. "Our ultimate goal is to drive the VAR into building a profitable managed service portfolio. Our tools are designed to fit in with what the VAR has in terms of monitoring and with what the end-user needs."

For Andy Harper, CIO of Gaeltek, a two-technician MSP and LPI Level Platforms and Autotask customer in Vienna, Va., Ingram's new additions are tempting as he tries to grow his business.

"I'm actually quite excited about this offering because this might be a way to give me back some control of my life," he said. "This might actually allow me to offer 24/7 desktop monitoring and support."

Harper also spoke highly of how the services are priced. "The price point is phenomenal, to be honest. Per-user for unlimited 24/7 desktop support is $140-per-year, starting from 25 to 200 users," he said. "We can cherry-pick the Seismic services, so if I want the Help Desk, I can do that. And to be honest, that was a concern, because I like my direct relationship with Level Platforms and Autotask."

He said he doesn't see the Ingram offering as a threat to his burgeoning MSP business.

"I see it as a way to augment the service we provide. I listened to the director of the channel and they aren't going to go direct," he said. "I want to double business this year. This might well help me do that, without creating way more pain and grief."

Craig Valentine Brenner, CEO of New England Data Services, an established MSP in Waltham, Mass., said he is watching Ingram's SaaS-to-resellers strategy as he contemplates possibly making a similar play with his company. But Brenner said he has reservations about lowering the barriers to entry to managed services for VARs if it's done in a way that damages the reputations of MSPs as a whole.

"If it's not done properly and it's not well thought-out, it will be a disaster, in my opinion," he said. "It'll put a negative perception out there in the marketplace about MSPs."

He also wonders what a VAR's relationship will be with the distributor if it signs on to Seismic.

"How much hand-holding will Ingram Micro be able to provide [VAR partners]? How about the relationship between Ingram Micro and Level Platforms? How does that hold up?" he asked.

Ingram, for its part, is hoping that VARs do decide to take the MSP plunge, and take it with Ingram.

"The strategy is to target the folks that have been sitting on the fence, the late adopters, so to speak the folks who haven't made decisions on where to go," said Crotty. "I think the additional offerings above and beyond the monitoring platform, like the NOC, the help desk, those will be adopted by new VARs and existing MSP VARs alike ... They can fold these into their current portfolios without having to make a lot of changes."

The result, he said, should be a significant, steady revenue stream.

"We don't suggest markup to VARs, but the pricing is some of the most competitive pricing for these types of offerings in the market," said Crotty. "It's up to the VAR to figure out what they want to charge their end-customer In general, VARs should be making a lot of money on this stuff if they're pricing it correctly."