SolarWinds continues to show momentum in the MSP (managed IT services provider) software market, and is gaining momentum in the service desk software sector, CEO Kevin Thompson and CFO Bart Kalsu, assert. Read between the lines, and the company is also looking to take market share from ServiceNow's IT service management (ITSM) platform.
The Thompson and Kalsu statements surfaced Wednesday in SolarWinds' third quarter earnings report and on the earnings call. During the period, total revenue was $240.5 million, up 12.8 percent on a reported basis from Q3 last year. The company's quarterly earnings exceeded Wall Street expectations. But overall quarterly revenue was about $3 million below Wall Street's targets, according to SeekingAlpha.
Still, Kalsu pointed to that MSP and service desk momentum, stating:
"Included within recurring revenue, our non-GAAP subscription revenue has grown 24% year-to-date on a constant currency basis primarily driven by our MSP business along with the contribution from SolarWinds Service Desk, which was acquired from Samanage in the second quarter."
Also, Thompson added:
"Diving a bit more into the details of our subscription revenue we saw strong early contribution from our new advanced endpoint protection offering by our MSP customers in the third quarter.
We are excited about the opportunity we see to be a leader in delivering the security solutions that MSPs need to protect the IT environments of their small business customers and plan to make that they continued area of product expansion focus."
SolarWinds partnered with SentinelOne on the endpoint protection offering in May 2019.
Longer term, watch for SolarWinds to bring more and more of the power of the Orion based network management products to the MSP platform, Thomson said. "We've already migrated the capability of silhouette network topology mapping on product platform and are now focused on bringing the capabilities of silhouette network configuration monitor through MSP market in the first half of 2020."
SolarWinds Service Desk vs. ServiceNow
SolarWinds acquired Samanage in April 2019 in a bid to disrupt ServiceNow. Still, ServiceNow has a massive, rapidly growing installed base. Moreover, ServiceNow has hired former SAP CEO and well-known business showman Bill McDermott to succeed John Donahoe as chief executive officer by the end of 2019.
