N-able Technologies' Bucks Economy, Says Subscription and International Sales Jumped in 2009

N-able Technologies said that in 2009 it posted a three-fold, year-over-year spike in subscription sales and doubled its international revenue, results the company attributed in part to the rapid acceptance by its channel partners of its recently released N-central 7.0 software.

The company launched the N-central 7.0 product in December along with $75 million in licensing promotions for its managed services and security applications, prompting an immediate uptick in Q4 worldwide sales, officials said.

“There’s no question that a major catalyst for what we’ve seen in our partner base and customer acquisition is the 7.0 product release,” said Gavin Garbutt, N-able president and chief executive.

Garbutt said that through the end of 2009, some 540 channel partners, or about 25 percent of the vendor’s total reseller base, had “uploaded and put 7.0 into commercial use within the first three weeks of its release.”

He said that a large portion of the company’s uptick in new license purchasing has come from its base of existing channel partners, not just from new enrollees.

“It shows that partners are using 7.0 to increase their business,” he said.

The free licensing promotion, or “freemium” as the company termed it, has been successful “way beyond our expectations” as a driver for new installations of the N-central 7.0 software, he said.

Early success with the N-central 7.0 release and the free licensing offers has prompted the company to position it as a platform--upon which it can extend application solutions--rather than just a product, Garbutt said.

“What you’re going to see from us is N-central as the platform,” he said. “More critical applications will be bolted into it to provide the managed service provider with a complete solution, similar to what we did with Endpoint Security Manager. There will be more applications like that, either integrated or standalone.”

Garbutt said that N-able also will extend the “freemium” strategy to additional products launched this year.

Company expects continued growth in 2010

He said that N-able expects its sales trend line to continue upward in 2010, helping along by improving market conditions.

“We expect the same or greater growth in 2010 as we had in 2009,” Garbutt said.

A great deal of that revenue growth will spring from international markets, particularly in Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and the U.K., he said.

“IT spending is set to pick up again over the next two years and will bring forward massive revenue and profit generating opportunities for those MSPs worldwide who are well positioned and proactively using their clients’ IT asset data to provide intelligent recommendations on what IT solutions and services may best support the client’s business goals and objectives.”

“We’re always encouraging our channel partners to lead with value,” he said.