Having founded a managed service provider (MSP) and leading it for 15 years prior to starting Nerdio, I can’t recall a more opportune time to be in managed services. The need and market demand for what MSPs do to help customers hasn’t been more obvious than it is today given the need for organizations to stay productive from anywhere.
As technology is becoming more mission critical for all organizations, the overall complexity is growing rapidly. The pace of change is mind boggling. And it is difficult to keep up with even for those of us whose job it is to stay current. Add to this cybersecurity, work from anywhere challenges, and cloud migrations – and it becomes clear that MSPs have a lot of work to do and value to deliver.
To deliver this value and capture the opportunity, however, MSPs must evolve their skills and approach. Selling, installing, and managing on-premises hardware will no longer cut it. MSPs must build skills and tech intensity in areas of cloud, security, desktop virtualization and other work-from-anywhere technologies.
Here at Nerdio, we are at the forefront of helping MSPs evolve and take advantage of this tremendous market potential. In continuing our mission to empower MSPs with the tools, education, expertise, and services to build a thriving cloud practice in Microsoft Azure – we are pleased to share a diverse range of new product and channel partner investments we believe strengthen our value-add and commitment to MSPs.
Nerdio Manager for MSP Product Evolution + New Features
In the last 12 months, Nerdio Manager for MSP saw 15 new releases with 180 new features. These were all derived from direct partner feedback. When a customer or partner of ours requests a feature, more often than not it will be in the next month’s product release. Not next year—next month.
We have no intention of slowing down and I’m thrilled to announce some of the exciting things you can expect to see from Nerdio this year.
Microsoft Endpoint Manager – Full Integration
To enable MSPs to adopt cloud-first technologies, we are expanding Nerdio Manager for MSP via new, full integration with Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM). We see MEM becoming a critical tool in any MSP’s toolbox as they build and support IT infrastructure for customers in a cloud-first world. And we are excited the integration will allow MSPs to streamline management of physical devices, virtual desktops in Azure, and Cloud PCs.
The initial integration with MEM will allow service providers to accomplish the following in Nerdio Manager for MSP. You can read more via our press release.
- Manage all endpoints centrally, including those in Azure Virtual Desktop or Windows 365 as well as physical desktops and mobile devices.
- Install and manage all types of applications on physical and virtual desktops via Intune.
- Apply policies and baselines to ensure endpoint compliance.
- Leverage endpoint analytics to monitor and improve performance and user experience.
- Provide remote assistance to users with Remote help capabilities.
Expanded Application Management Capabilities
Nerdio Manager for MSP already has robust application management capabilities for virtual desktops with powerful image management automation and scripted actions. Now even more app management capabilities are coming to the product that allow MSPs to:
- Manage already installed apps on multi-session AVD desktops leveraging FSLogix App Masking technology. All installed apps will be automatically discovered and MSPs will be able to select which apps are available to which users – all from within the Nerdio Manager console in a simple and intuitive way.
- Install and manage all types of apps on physical and virtual desktops via Intune integration.
Pricing and Cost Management
In a cloud-first world, costs feel elastic. They change too often for our comfort. The cloud charges are based on consumption, but customers don’t like surprise bills, often leaving MSPs caught in the middle.
We understand costs and margins are extremely important to MSPs. Helping you increase margins by being more efficient is an integral part of Nerdio’s mission. To that end, we’ll continue enhancing our products to help MSPs optimize costs by:
- Comparing a deployed environment to a saved estimate of what was quoted to the customer and seeing the differences highlighted. This will help you be aware of any discrepancies that exist and adjust customer pricing, if needed.
- Pre-scheduling shut down of resources that shouldn’t be running when not in use. For example, shut down desktop image VMs (virtual machines) after you’re done working with them automatically.
- Receiving warnings and notifications if unused resources, like desktop images, are running when they shouldn’t be so you can proactively stop the not needed resources and save on Azure costs.
- Leveraging Windows 365 Enterprise license optimizations to only assign a license to users who actually request to log into a new Cloud PC and automatically reclaim an unused license after a long period of user inactivity.
Integrations and Support for New Microsoft Features
Lastly, keeping up with Microsoft and the IT industry can be more than a full-time job. We make it simpler for you by staying on top of the relevant changes, both big and small, by building them into our products. Here are some notable examples you’ll see this year:
- New Commerce Experience (NCE) changes reflected in our free Cost Estimator tool
- Integration with the new Windows 365 Business APIs
- Windows 365 Enterprise Azure AD Join support
- Support for new Ephemeral OS disk types
Introducing New Channel Partner Programs + Events
In addition to the notable product investments we’re making this year, we’ll be launching three new strategic programs to help partners accelerate their Azure practices quicker and achieve more.
To provide you with a resource to ask technical, business, or go-to-market questions in a live format, we’ll be launching a weekly “Office Hours” call. You and your staff will be able to drop in to ask questions, hear the latest and greatest updates from Nerdio, or interact with peers at other MSPs.
To help you feel technically confident in migrating all your customers to Azure with Nerdio, we’ll be launching a program that will provide our Platinum Partnerd partners access to Nerdio’s top engineering experts who will work in collaboration with Microsoft support to help with unforeseen Azure, Active Directory, AVD, or Azure AD issues.
Nerdio’s thriving partner ecosystem spans time zones and skill sets. We will help facilitate partner-to-partner engagement by vetting and certifying MSPs and freelancers who will be available to help other partners with a needed skill set, higher level of Azure or Nerdio expertise, or just an extra pair of hands.
We have also ramped up our first-party events and are pleased to share two new ones!
Nerdio CEO Summit
Just last month, we launched our CEO Summit series where we invited the CEOs of MSPs to Chicago to spend time with me and members of my leadership team in an interactive discussion dealing with the hardest topics MSPs face in building a successful cloud practice in Azure. We are running these 1-2 times a month for 10-12 leaders running an MSP. Contact us today if you’re interested in attending. The next dates will be March 31, May 5 and May 26.
Nerdio Training Camp
Nerdio AVD Training Camp is another new initiative where we are going to be coming to a city near you to do a one-day deep technical training on Nerdio Manager, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Windows 365. You and your technical staff will not want to miss this so stay tuned for details on when and where stops are planned. The first one will be taking place on April 6th in Philadelphia.
Reaching Two Million Users Under Management
We launched Nerdio Manager for MSP one year ago and it went into General Availability 10 months ago. In the past 10 months, more than a thousand MSPs from around the world migrated thousands of customers to Azure and AVD and hundreds of new MSPs are joining us every month.
Last September, we announced that across all our products we reached one million users under management, which seemed like an almost impossible milestone to reach. It is surreal that today I get to announce that this month we crossed two million users under management. And there is no sign of this slowing down!
There are now Nerdio partners and customers in more than 40 countries. If you’d like to become part of our quickly growing partner community and boost your Azure practice, contact our team today to get the conversation started.
