Caution: Statements made in this blog are not censored, not politically correct, and are of the writers opinion. If you cant take it dont read it.
A few posts ago I wrote about Kaseya taking over your customers. As I lead into the posting, I also mentioned that this should be of no supprise as they have been doing this for a long time.
Many comments came in, they mostly were employees of Kaseya but a few were obviously loyal customers that could not see past the horizon, and could not identify themselves for what ever reason ( maybe more employees ??? Jay?)
But now trying to move on, the last post I had (which I didn't allow) mentioned that I had a personal vendetta against Kaseya. Initially I couldn't agree with the comment. However now I am coming forward, I realize I was in denial.
My last post was about Vendor accountability. This week I have been attending Xchange America in Dallas #XAM . After talking to quite a few people whom are vars, a common thread emerged. Vendors who speak on both sides of their mouth. We/I spoke out in the cloud computing boardroom about TRUST. Where I realized I do indeed have a vendetta and personal issues against Kaseya and any other vendor who tries to screw the channel.
Later myself and others all laughed as everyone started talking about this... The rumor is out, even Robert DeMarzo had a slide on his opening season discussing this (went by very fast ). I will get the quote later. Vendors need to stop talking out of both sides of their mouths!
Had great discussions with various people of the industry tonight (IPED, among other vars and vendors), The idea of a Vendor "BBB" could be a great addition in the market right now. Cloud computing is only going to make the need for this greater, as margins and tensions grow with vendors trying to undercut each other, causing a ripple effect on VARs trying to make decent business in this competing/emerging market.
Talking to the many people tonight (VARS) the verdict is in... We need this organization ASAP.
PS. (As it relates at Kaseya) People, if your looking for an RMM partner, look at all your options. Read my earlier posts as to why I choose who I choose. Perhaps the choice I made is aligned the same way yours is. Kaseya its not just you I have a vendetta against! You stopped listening... Your interest is not for the people. Stale Technology needs a refresh every 5 years anyway... Labtech seems to be the best fit for this right now!
I love my friends at Reflexion, Scott and I have known each other for some time and I feel like I need to put some of my bias about Reflexion on this blog. People know me as a "say it like it is type of person", I don't believe in censorship... either i like it or I don't and I will give you a very good reason one way or another.
When I was introduced to Scott I asked what people really should ask when looking for an Anti-Spam partner: What makes you different?
Scott went on about all the features in Reflexion that really didn't sound any different from other providers, I was not sold. I told Scott it sounds like you guys have pretty much the same features as anyone else... When he introduced me to the "Address on the Fly" function, I was intrigued and willing to try it out.
Since this day (about 4 years) more than just Reflexion's AOTF feature has emerged.
- Friendships (throughout the Reflexion company)
- 100% Channel - not the want to be attitude or the on the fence type.
- They listen to the Vars for feature requests.
- They have helped me with setup for customers...
- Bottom line they do more than any other company would be willing to do.
It offends me to read about comparisons that are completely unjustified, and outright false - just to make a sale. One in particular was a comparison with regards to Spam Soap vs. Reflexion, a close friend of mine got this letter and forwarded it to me for my thoughts.
Here is the letter with my comments:
Reflexion does a great job, however there are a number of differences.
We are going to be easier in setup because we don't require you to document all your users for filtering or mail delivery to be active. With Spam Soap users are auto discovered. With Reflexion you need to setup users if they are to receive email.
FALSE! With Reflexion you can setup LDAP integration that will sync with ALL users in the AD no matter what OU they are in. Also have Public Mail Enabled Folders added/synced, and have distribution lists created. The best part is you delete a user.... guess what it delets in Reflexion as well. Best part is you dont need software installed. If security is a big issue you can enable User creation on first outbound... Come on do some homework.
Message Continuity is an option that can be offered without higher priced services like archiving Reflexion requires archiving in order to get message continuity, which will cost more.
FALSE! With Reflexion you have message continuity though message queuing/spooling in the event the mail sever is unreachable.
If you want to add another layer you can use Radar lite at a $nominal user/month on top of the price for RTC (Reflexion Total Control)
We name our virus definition providers: McAfee, Sophos, and Authentium. Reflexion fails to name its anti-virus providers or processes, opting instead to tout the "Protective Addresses" feature.
OK you may have a point here but I laugh at it because I have a great comeback for this.
I had a customer that was not small in size using Spam Soap for services and their NAMED AV solution was failing daily.
Every Day this customer had viruses that hit the exchange server's Symantec quarantine. We switched them to Reflexion and not only did they notice Viruses were gone, they also noticed a HUGE improvement to Anti-Spam. LOL.
Spam Soap is owned and operated by an 80-person IT company, and uses technology from a 200 person subsidiary of the largest dedicated security company in the world, McAfee. Teams of people devoted to development, infrastructure, support, and service.
Sorry not good enough. I actually choose to give the smaller guys a chance rather than using a company that outsources the main component to an ANTI-SPAM solution... this component being FILTERING. Once upon a time Spam Soap ran their own filtering... now they rely on McAfee (once MXLogic). Guys really? Why not just go direct to McAfee... if you want to rely on someone larger that has no interest in Small vars like us. McAfee could care less if I or you disappear. Multiply that by 100's of small vars then they may think about you. The Focus for these giants are the enterprise.
Do you know how large Reflexion is, in terms of people? I would encourage you to ask. How much depth do they have in terms of support, service, etc?
Again sorry not good enough. In the 4 years of doing business with Reflexion I have yet to see a time where they were unavailable and of course that was when I needed to call. I rarely have to call them mainly due to the fact that all the tools I need to support the customer are in my control panel. I can read logs for inbound and outbound mail to troubleshot where the messages are hanging up. 99% of the time its the end-users mail server. So back at Spam Soap... why do you need a large staff? that sounds like overhead to me, if you provide such a great service why do you need support staff?
All opinions aside, Spam Soap really has only 5 people in support. Yes they work in the same building as InhouseIT but only 5 of these people know how to support Spam Soap, otherwise they have to rely on McAfee.
Reflexion has about 15 employees and I believe they are larger than that now... of which Everyone including the CEO knows how to support a customer. (this includes developers, support staff, sales, etc)
So lesson? Yes people need to do their homework and be thorough about it, ask other partners look at price; In Anti-Spam its very marginal anyway so look at functionality and extensibility. Who integrates also provides a bigger clue. My Choice is Reflexion for Anti-Spam.
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