“We definitely see it as something where they can capitalize on a revenue stream that wasn’t there before,” notes Graciano Beyhaut, Eaton’s commercial integration leader.
Eaton hopes the growing power of the Brightlayer platform will make partnering with it more appealing to channel pros who already appreciate the value of recurring revenue—managed service providers. That’s an increasingly strategic segment of the channel that Eaton plans to attract more of by introducing an MSP partner program later this year.
“It starts with the software for them,” Beyhaut notes. “It’s definitely the tip of the spear.”
To make adopting its software even more tempting for MSPs, Eaton has created an integration linking IPM to RMM tools from ConnectWise. Pending approval from ConnectWise, which is expected within days, the new feature will enable technicians to manage power infrastructure through the same interface they use to manage PCs and servers.
“Being able to just plug the Eaton software portfolio into that existing [ConnectWise] infrastructure would make things, obviously, a lot easier,” says Osman Aziz, a business development manager at Questivity, an Eaton partner and infrastructure solution provider in Santa Clara, Calif.
According to Tardy, more such integrations are likely to follow in the future. “We’re evaluating the market right now,” he says. “We want to go beyond ConnectWise.”
Graham, meanwhile, points to one last reason why management software is increasingly important to Eaton, and should loom larger for its partners well: it’s invulnerable to supply chain snarls.
“Software,” he says, “is always in stock.”
