In The Media

A small businesses’ worst nightmare is probably unforeseen and seemingly unpreventable website downtime caused by an internal glitch. GoDaddy.comclients, who use the domain provider to host their websites, found themselves in the dark for an entire afternoon due to “a series of internal network events that corrupted router data tables.” As an indispensable part of some SMB’s business processes, many faced downtime that caused loss in revenue and a halt in sales leads.

If you are anything like me, “spoiler alerts” on practically every online news and social network site means that I’ve spent some time over the last two week streaming coverage of the 2012 London Olympics at work via an on-network device – usually from my iPhone.  While watching one or two streaming videos from time to time isn’t that detrimental to my personal work productivity, IT professionals and small business owners quickly realize that streaming content can cause an even more substantial drain on network productivity.

By Joseph Walker
MSPmentor mentioned earlier today that "Quest’s PacketTrapteam appears to be heads-down on a cloud version of PacketTrap MSP, a remote monitoring and management (RMM) software platform." We can confirm that PacketTrap is indeed headed toward a launch of an SaaS edition of PacketTrap MSP.

I spoke recently with Mike Byrne (pictured right), Director of MSP at Quest, and he said Quest has a non-firm Q4 target release date for their new SaaS PacketTrap MSP software—which combines the company remote monitoring and management (RMM) software and their professional service automation (PSA) product. For anyone not familiar with PacketTrap MSP, I suggest you take a look at it here. It's a great network monitoring and management product at a reasonable price.

By Joe Panettieri
Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) expects to complete the Quest Software (NASDAQ: QSFT) buyout in Q3 2012. In the meantime, Quest has announced Q2 results, expanded support for NetApp storage, and is pushing deeper into the managed services software market. Indeed, Quest’s PacketTrapteam appears to be heads-down on a cloud version of PacketTrap MSP, a remote monitoring and management (RMM) software platform.

PacketTrap MSP already runs on-premises. The cloud version will deliver closer ties with PacketTrap PSA, a professional services automation (PSA) platform that Quest acquired last year. Together, PacketTrap hopes the cloud-based PSA and MSP solutions deliver end-to-end monitoring and business management services for MSPs.

So, what’s happening off stage? Hmmm…

by Joe Panettieri
Quest Software (NASDAQ: QSFT) has received a $2.32 billion takeover bid, allegedly from Dell. Insight Venture Partners, another recent bidder, has three days to make a potential counter bid for the desktop virtualization, IT administration and managed services software company.

by Frank Gurnee
Quest Software Inc. (NASDAQ: QSFT) known for its PacketTrap PSA Software and many other IT software solutions in the channel; accepted a $2.17B bid from private equity company Insight Venture Partners and has added Vector Capital to the buying mix. This comes as a surprise given that Dell Inc. had been vying for the company. Given the nature of Dell’s buying habits, and questions or expectations of what would become of the company once sold to Dell, may have weighed heavily on Quests decision.

by Joe Panettieri
Insight Venture Partners and a surprise partner now lead the bidding war for Quest Software (NASDAQ: QSFT). But published reports Tuesday evening suggest Dellcould still mount another counter-bid for Quest, which develops desktop virtualization, IT administration and managed services software.

by Larry Walsh
The “mystery” bidder that surfaced yesterday to buy Quest Software is none other than Dell.

by Joe Panettieri
Dell is the mystery bidder for Quest Software, according to published reports this evening. It’s too early to say if Dell will actually acquire Quest, which makes virtualization, IT administration and managed services software. But this is one of the wildest on-again, off-again, on-again M&A stories in recent history.