{"id":69758,"date":"2014-06-10T16:52:24","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T20:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbach.net\/blog\/index.php\/"},"modified":"2021-07-22T13:27:23","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T17:27:23","slug":"autotask-sold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/autotask-sold\/","title":{"rendered":"Autotask Sold"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Autotask<\/a>Redmond Channel Partner<\/a><\/em> is reporting<\/a> that Vista Equity Partners<\/a><\/strong> is acquiring<\/strong> Autotask Corp. RCP<\/em> says Autotask<\/a><\/strong> is one of the most significant vendors for managed services providers. The article reports the private equity firm is buying Autotask for an undisclosed sum. Vista’s $11.5-billion portfolio includes Aptean<\/a>, Websense<\/a>, and at least 20 vertically focused technology companies. The announcement came during Autotask’s 2014 Community Live! show in Miami.<\/p>\n

\"Autotask<\/a>Mark Cattini<\/a>, president and CEO of Autotask, issued a statement to RCP<\/em>, which says all the proper things, about aggressively improving Autotask’s solutions for customers.<\/p>\n

We are devoted to our clients’ ongoing success and are confident that our partnership with Vista will drive innovation and growth and delivery dynamic solutions as the traditional IT landscape evolves.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Managed<\/a>Alan Cline<\/a>, principal at Vista Equity Partners<\/a>, indicated that Autotask’s focus on IT service providers<\/strong> as core customers would continue. He also claimed the firm would help improve the product. He said in a statement to RCP<\/em>\u00a0 to “work with the Autotask team to expand and enhance the company’s solutions<\/strong> to help IT service providers more efficiently and effectively meet their client’s changing needs.”<\/p>\n

The article claims this is just the latest step in the consolidation of the remote monitoring and management (RMM) market arena. RCP says this trend got rolling with a growth equity firm backing the 2011 spinoff of what eventually became Continuum from Zenith Infotech<\/a>, followed by 2013’s private equity-funded acquisition and internal development spree at Kaseya<\/a>, along with new owners for N-Able Technologies<\/a> (SolarWinds<\/a>) and Level Platforms Inc. (AVG Technologies<\/a>).<\/p>\n

rb-<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Frustrated\"<\/a>I have used the Autotask project module and IMHO it really needs help. My first beef is not fully with Autotask, rather it is with all SaaS-based\u00a0applications, every time a task is updated, Autotask immediately sends the change thru the Inter-tubes and slows down any project planning to a crawl, especially when you are used to using\u00a0Microsoft<\/a> (MSFT<\/a>) Project<\/a> on a LAN.<\/em><\/p>\n

Speaking of Project, Autotask has no way to directly import any of your existing mpp’s. The best that an Autotask “consultant” could do was have me export the mpp to an xls via Project and then import that into Autotask. Really?<\/em><\/p>\n

There are not a lot of real-time tools in Autotask like Team Planner and Task Inspector.<\/em><\/p>\n

All-in-all, the project piece of Autotask was a net loss. The new owners of Autotask have their work cut out for them if they are going to make their acquisition profitable.<\/em><\/p>\n

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