AppDirect Acquires Canadian IT Services Provider Radialpoint

Cloud marketplace vendor AppDirect revealed Wednesday its acquisition of Radialpoint, a Canadian IT services provider.

The deal closed before the new year at an undisclosed price, giving AppDirect -- one of the fastest growing startups in the tech world -- a services arm that its channel partners can call on to assist the 30 million customers procuring cloud-based software through its platform.

AppDirect co-CEO Daniel Saks told CRN that Montreal-based Radialpoint brings under his company's roof the kind of human expertise that businesses buying Software-as-a-Service applications from AppDirect-powered marketplaces are looking for. Radialpoint's capabilities can complement and enable the work of the San Francisco-based app store vendor's channel partners, he said.

[Related: AppDirect Buys AppCarousel, Consolidating App Store Platforms]

"It became more apparent that delivering expert services had become even more core to the technology experience," Saks said. "As we're launching with telecoms and VARs around the world, it's critical to offer integrated services for premium migrations, support and connectivity."

Radialpoint has a unique place in AppDirect's heart -- founder Hamnett Hill was an angel investor in AppDirect.

Warren Levitan, Radialpoint's CEO, told CRN that the white-label services, sales and tech support his company offers its clients -- many of them telecoms or cloud providers -- foster trust between those providers and their users. Radialpoint typically supports products those customers sell, but that aren't part of their core service.

Once focused on consumer technologies, Radialpoint now assists small businesses with migrations, security and online backup -- essentially a remote IT help desk, Levitan told CRN.

"It's a mix of selling those applications, as well as installing and onboarding," he said.

Many MSPs and VARs have turned to AppDirect to launch self-branded app stores as vehicles for distributing software to which they add value. They needn't worry about AppDirect's latest subsidiary stepping on their toes, Saks made clear.

Instead, Radialpoint will better enable channel partners selling their own services to up their game, he said.

Radialpoint has built a backend platform for provisioning, billing and subscription management that MSPs can use if they'd like, Levitan said.

Other capabilities include CRM, ticketing and workflow solutions that help agents lead customers through standardized, quality-controlled processes for solving their problems. Radialpoint also offers components for client endpoints that help diagnose problems.

All those services and tools now under AppDirect's roof will be optional -- AppDirect's platform customers can forgo them, use some to complement their own offerings, or white-label them entirely, Saks said.

"If an MSP wants to offer those services, it would be their brand offering those services," Saks said, adding, "Actual product or tech support typically is not core to an MSP."

"What's important for AppDirect, from Day 1, is to remain open, agnostic and extensible," he said.

Radialpoint will remain an independent brand, Levitan said. The integration strategy in the near future will involve focusing on cross-sell opportunities.

"We're looking to get sales teams to work together, but work structure doesn't change much," Levitan told CRN.