Zenith - Good Salesman? And Zenith Experiences?

[DavidW]

Hi folks!

Does anyone have a good Zenith salesman with whom we could work as we evaluate Zenith for our needs? (We are based in sunny South Beach Miami, Florida, USA!)

(We have had discussion with Frank Bauer - Frank.Bauer@zenithinfotech.com - and he is busy and our styles are different and so we would like to see if there is someone else at Zenith we can work with more effectively.)

We would really appreciate some pointers - here on list or privately off-list as you feel comfortable with. (Our contact details are in our sig file below.)

And we have been auditing all comments on the discussion forum here about Zenith as an MSP and wonder if any new/long time users have any new wisdom to share, e.g.,

1. How has the experience been with integrating Zenith and CommitCRM - at this point via one way and even then limited email connector integration (and even then, we hear that Zenith's email subject naming conventions are 'erratic' and so can't be used to reliably trigger tix creation in Commit).

2. How good is Zenith's TDC (Total Desktop Care)? What kind of experiences have your desktop users had when calling TDC for their Workstation needs?

/dwv
David W. Vaughan
www.A-1techsupport.com
Wired: 305-672-4374
Skype: a1techsupport
Twitter: @A1TechSupport
Cell-Tech Emergencies: 786-200-6703
Making Technology Work

[lpopejoy]

Re: Zenith - Good Salesman? And Zenith Experiences?

I'm sure there are others here who use and love Zenith. I did a trial, and really disliked it. One of the main things I didn't like was the Indian NOC. IT is not fun trying to communicate business with people who do not understand your culture OR language!

I ended going with hosted Kaseya through virtualadministrators.com. However, currently I am trialing, liking, and considering switching to Labtech Software.

[DavidW]

Re: Zenith - Good Salesman? And Zenith Experiences?

Thanx for your reply!

>> One of the main things I didn't like was the Indian NOC.
Was this when you were speaking to them for Server or Desktop remediation work? Were they hard to understand - or simply following a script and not helpful?

>> I ended going with hosted Kaseya through virtualadministrators.com.
Have you liked Kaseya? Perhaps not, if you are still looking? What is NOT to like about Kaseya? Are you able to get Kaseya to integrate with Commit, at any level at all, e.g., Kaseya email alerts to CommitCRM trouble tix using the CommitCRM email connector?

>>... currently I am trialing, liking, and considering switching to Labtech Software.
Ah, let me see...
Main site here: http://www.labtechsoft.com/.

Features are here: http://www.labtechsoft.com/index.php?page=features. What is MISSING here is a clear, concise features CHECKLIST - and it would be even nicer if this offering was compared with others in the field.

Does LabTech have a NOC and can it handle IT chores for us? DOes it take that one step further, like Zenith, and even offer help desk support to our workstation end users?

And whoa, not cheap, at this pricing: http://www.labtechsoft.com/index.php?page=pricing , esp if NO NOC and ability to provide us with any level of IT 'chore handling'.

At what commentary is out there on Labtech (and how it compares with Zenith and Kaseya etc). Let's see:
->http://www.linkedin.com/answers/tech...320210-3428072
-> http://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/200...vs-kaseya.html (old but telling posting about an attitude problem at Kaseya)
-> http://www.mspalliance.com/forum/lab...-kaseya-vs-all
-> http://www.mspalliance.com/forum/whi...e-platform-use - quite interesting reading

TIA for any further wisdom on Kaseya and LabTech capabilities.

/dwv
David W. Vaughan
www.A-1techsupport.com
Wired: 305-672-4374
Skype: a1techsupport
Twitter: @A1TechSupport
Cell-Tech Emergencies: 786-200-6703
Making Technology Work

[lpopejoy]

Re: Zenith - Good Salesman? And Zenith Experiences?

Honestly, I probably didn't use them long enough to authoritatively answer all of your questions, but I'll do the best I can... This is my opinion only - others love them - your mileage may be better! :)

I didn't actually use the remote remediation, because I'm not about to give my clients the same experience that I hate with overseas tech support. I strongly disliked, however, being called at 1:00 in the morning to tell me that my server was down when I already knew it because I was rebooting it. You can hardly understand who they are and what they want to begin with... Then you have to convince them it is OK...

Kaseya... Yes, I have liked it. It is crazy expensive for a startup to get it though, which is why I've been using www.virtualadministrators.com. (Very nice group if you decide to go with K). The reason I'm looking at Labtech is that they have a better feature set at a fraction of the cost.

Labtech has no NOC; you ARE the NOC. That's what I want anyway, so not an issue for me.

Labtech expensive? $40/agent for a perpetual license? That's cheap! $8 for maintenance / year? That's really cheap too... I pay $7.00/mo/agent for hosted Kaseya. $40/12 = $3.33/month for a better feature set than Kaseya. After the first year, then Labtech would be "free" - and an asset to my company - owned by me. I pay $8/year/agent for maintenance which equals $.66/mo/agent. That's cheap. I haven't seen the competition touch it in either features or cost.

Labtech has it's issues, and there are points that concern me. For instance, there seems to be ONE main developer (which means ONE point of failure). There are other devs, but Greg is the main guy. I dislike it's dependence on .NET framework. The Mac Agent really is worthless. There are several bugs in the interface, none of which cause major issues though. In their defense, they are very responsive to community requests (much like Commit).

Your best bet for Labtech is to sign up for their weekly webinar, and even download and install the 60 day trial. You'll learn way more than I could tell you here. If you need a third party review/demo sometime, call me up and we'll setup a time!

Best wishes,

Luke

[benjamin]

Re: Zenith - Good Salesman? And Zenith Experiences?

David,

I'll try to get in touch with you about Kaseya if you want to get your evaluation started. I happen to live in South Beach myself (love it here!) -- we have an office in Brickell along with Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa among the dozens of other locations we have around the world.

Benjamin Lavalley, Sr. Sales Engineer, Kaseya
benjamin dot lavalley at kaseya dot com
skype: benjamin.lavalley.kaseya

[DavidW]

Re: Zenith - Good Salesman? And Zenith Experiences?

Thanx Benjamin! /dwv