3 Emerging Managed Services Companies

If there was a product that had the potential to pay for your company's operating expense through recurring monthly revenue, foster higher customer satisfaction, secure your client's network, and eliminate almost all future service calls, an integrator might feel like he found the nirvana.

Perhaps dealers have found an ideal category to sell in the form of managed service systems. These systems appear to offer a strong potential for recurring revenue, as well as client satisfaction. The systems also can greatly reduce service call expenses and offer a potential differentiator in the market.

The systems spit out a monitoring "dashboard" for a dealer that can then be used to:

• Track systems' status in the field
• Undertake action remotely to repair a problem over an IP network
• Anticipate repair or service work
• Add a layer of security to an IP-based system to prevent outsiders from gaining access to clients' info

The category broke on the scene a few years ago with Atomoo. Unfortunately, Atomoo folded in September 2009 due to the loss of a key investor. But other companies do not seem dismayed by that development.

Here's a look at three companies emerging in the managed services market.

CytexOne

"We have the Golden Egg," says Dan Levine, president of New York City-based CytexOne. He is referring to the company's new Atlas product, a "black box" that remotely monitors every piece of equipment in a home entertainment system via an IP network.

Levine says CytexOne's Atlas product is not a pipe dream. As an integrator himself, Levine already has more than 50 of the devices monitoring more than 1,000 nodes in the field among his customer base. The solution was actually born out of his installation company's own need about seven years ago. Those small servers led to the development of Atlas. The company offers two models: a small shelf unit and larger rack-mount unit.

"In New York City, overhead is so high and dispatching a service vehicle for every problem was costly," he recalls. "We started putting small servers into every system we installed, using it to program and monitor and maintain the entire system after the fact. It's not a financial feasible option to physically go on site after the job is done. We needed to know the problems before they happened so we could be proactive. Everything we can do on-site, we can do remotely, except physically changing out a device."