Datto Reaches Backup Appliance Milestone, Preps UTM Security Launch -

Datto, which develops data protection solutions for MSPs, has shipped its 100,000th BDR (backup and disaster recovery) appliance and is preparing to enter the unified threat management (UTM) security market in Q1 2017.

Datto Chief Revenue Officer Brooks Borcherding, Chief Marketing Officer Pete Rawlinson and VP of Business Development Rob Rae disclosed the milestones and next moves during a ChannelE2E meeting on Thursday at ConnectWise IT Nation 2016.

Borcherding has spent the past year or so focusing Datto on four levers for growth -- (1) taking market share, (2) geographic expansion, (3) moving up market and (4) extending into product and market adjacencies. Datto addressed each one of those four points during our briefing.

The 100,000 product shipments show that Datto is taking market share, company officials assert, though it's difficult to pinpoint market share metrics in the SMB IT market that MSPs serve.

In terms of geographic expansion, Datto recently opened a Singapore office while also activating a second data center in Canada -- providing new redundancy to partners at no additional charge. The company also hosted an EMEA partner summit in October 2016, which attracted about 300 MSPs.

As MSPs grow their revenues and transform from small to midmarket businesses, Datto essentially benefits and gets lifted into the midmarket, the company asserts.

Datt0 recently launched ransomware protection capabilities, and expects to launch a unified threat management (UTM) WiFi router in Q1 2016. The product extension and market adjacency moves further blur the line between storage, data protection and IT security.

Datto Networking Appliance: Worth the Wait?

Datto has been working on a WiFi router for more than a year. But the original ship dates slipped a bit as the company evolved its R&D strategy. Over time the device -- known as DNA (Datto Networking Appliance) -- shifted beyond its WiFi network roots to include more and more core security capabilities.

In the meantime, Datto's core storage business has plenty of runway for more MSP growth, company leaders said.