648 IT Nation 2024: Jeff Bishop Shares ASIO Integration Updates

(0:10 - 0:32)
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast, and we are coming down the home stretch here at IT Nation in Orlando, Florida, at the lovely Gaylord Palms Resort. And I just had to reset up the gear because I have joining me with me, Gene Nero, manager. Wow, that was just horrible.

(0:34 - 0:43)
General manager at ConnectWise, Jeff Bishop is in the house. Jeff, how are you? Good, Marv. I appreciate you letting me come on and hang out with you for a little bit this morning.

(0:43 - 1:01)
Well, thank you, sir. And I apologize for not being quite ready for you, but glad to have you here. And of course, you're somebody that people want to hear from because you're kind of, you know, the go-to guy when, you know, ASIO comes up.

(1:02 - 1:27)
I mean, it's just the core features of ConnectWise, trying to make everything work together. Kind of talked about it last year at Connect. So I guess I should ask, you know, what's all the new stuff that's happened since then? Since Connect, a lot of it's been, we've been trying to get it all set up to start to bring the PSA and some of the business management and the security products into ASIO.

(1:27 - 2:03)
So we, you know, going into Connect, you know, RMM's there, BCDR is there, vulnerability management, but we have a bit more work to do so that we can start to bring the PSA, CBQ, BrightGauge, ITBoost, SIM, MDR in. So that's the next wave, right? So we got a lot of that architecture in place and now starting to work with those teams to get all of them moved over to a common company, sites, contacts, devices, sometime in Q3, early Q4. So the ticketing, one ticketing, so that the PSA ticketing, RMM ticketing, helpdesk, NOC, SOC, all one spot.

(2:03 - 2:31)
So we've got all the pieces done now. So now it's starting to bring all of it together. I'm sure we're going to find some bugs and some problems we'll have to troubleshoot, but that's the next big wave and I think a lot of the partners are really going to appreciate it because it's... And then it gets turned into a company, boom, right? It's in every single product because it's the same backend.

(2:32 - 2:49)
And we've talked about it a little bit of like, this is where we're going and the vision and how much time it's going to save and simplicity and it just makes things just work. And now it's, as those products move in, it's really going to become a reality, which is fun to see when it starts to get connected. Right.

(2:50 - 3:08)
So you talked about the fact of everything tying together, basically this unified data layer. So I had Jake on yesterday. Jake was probably the most excited I have seen him be over sidekick and how everything is just gelling together with all that.

(3:08 - 3:35)
So... Yeah, look, I wish I was half the public speaker that Jake is, but yeah, I mean, when you can bring all the data together into one spot, that means you can start creating AI models that span products and span services. So we could build the best AI model ever for RMM and for PSA and for CPQ and for Bright Gauge, but they're disparate. When you can start to bring the data together in one spot, now you can create a handful of models that can bridge all those products.

(3:36 - 3:58)
It can start to look at CPQ data and make recommendations into the PSA or PSA data and make recommendations in RMM or vice versa. So I would love to say that we knew that generative AI was going to hit a year or so back and we were getting prepared for it. I think every one of us here thought it was like another several years out before we'd see this.

(3:59 - 4:07)
And sort of, I guess, fortuitous that we had stuff in place where we could start to build this stuff out of one data layer as we did. So it's good. Right.

(4:08 - 4:36)
So of course, on the first day, the keynote, the big announcement of Secure360, how much have you gotten asked about that in the last couple of days? Tons. Tons. Jeff, can we bring in other cloud products into it and other security products into it? And I'm like, no, I'm Jeff, not a mirror, right? So I sat down, I was like, that's the goal, right? Everything we do is about connecting things.

(4:36 - 5:00)
That's in the name, right? So and the ecosystem that is ASIO starts to help us really do that. So I love the fact that as we help vendors start to create their own pods, as pods can start to show up on a page or multiple pages, you don't have to be as a vendor anymore. You're not integrating into PSA or RMM, you're integrating into ASIO and now it can go across all of the products.

(5:00 - 5:20)
And I know there's a ton of vendors inside of there. It's going to be like, you mean I don't have to go learn 10 different API sets and I don't have to worry about this UI and maintain this integration and that integration? I can maintain one. They're going to love it, I hope. I'm sure they'll, again, tell me all the things that I need to improve to make it better, but we'll get there and we got a good team on it.

(5:20 - 5:45)
But when it comes to the 360 product, I mean, it is about bringing all the different security products together into a 360 view, start to correlate that data so that we can take actions against it. One of the big things was, they're like, oh man, we're going to need the ASIO agent to go out to help do some of this stuff. We want to isolate machines, we're going to do things, so that means we got to have RMM.

(5:46 - 5:59)
I'm like, no, no, no. Remember, ASIO is a framework, it's a platform as a service. That agent, the same agent that works for RMM, vulnerability management, it works for the RPA agent, it's the 360 agent.

(6:00 - 6:23)
It's not an RMM agent, it's an ASIO agent. So there was a little bit of confusion there, I think that's getting kind of squared away now with everybody. Well, I think the confusion too is, you're talking about the marketplace and the vendors that are already tied in and authorized integrated partners with you guys, but the fact is that you're going to have the ability to bring in other vendors.

(6:23 - 6:54)
They may not be ConnectWise authorized, but I think that kind of plays into, oh, well, can we play in your playground with our products if we're not technically in the ConnectWise family? So even if you're not in the ConnectWise family, we'd love to have you in. The way we ask everybody to do that is to come through the event program, so we know who you are, what you're doing, what's the goals, how do you want to market yourself, get you onto that tile dashboard, let everybody know you exist. And then it's helping you figure out how to do that integration.

(6:55 - 7:17)
One of the things I love about the event programs, they also look and make sure all the integrations are secure. So we run them through a security posture and check that out, so when we start putting these things out there, we can go to partners and go, we know that at least the integration itself is secure because we've done some of that analysis and insights, and we can work with vendors. A lot of people come in, push-pull data.

(7:17 - 7:47)
It's a very simple, clean, you get started, sign the paperwork, we understand who you are and what you're doing. Others want to come in and go, hey, can we do some joint marketing together? Can we do webinars together? We need additional APIs to do some other things, and so then we try to work with them on that. It's evolving, it's growing, like everything in ASIO, but we've already got over 15 or 20 vendors in there now, and I think that's really going to just skyrocket over the next six months.

(7:47 - 7:57)
All right. So enough bar talk now. Personally, how has the conference been for you and your time here? Okay.

(7:58 - 8:32)
I would love to say that I get to talk to MSPs probably daily, right? It's talking to them about the RMM product, talking to them about the RPA product, ASIO. Maybe I hop into help out Jake with some of the PSA things where he gets duplicative, he doesn't have enough time. So to be able to sit down and just go sit at one of these couches, four or five people will walk by that you haven't seen in a year and get to just hang out, hear how their families are, talk to them about the vacations they're getting ready to have here in a couple weeks.

(8:33 - 8:52)
Maybe seeing some of the challenges they have, get some inspiration on them. Maybe a few features I need to add or some bugs I need to fix, but that's the fun part when you can really just connect on that human level. I was talking to somebody the other day and I was like, hey, look, the whole thing is this isn't an enterprise show.

(8:52 - 9:04)
This is a small business show at the end of the day. This is where we know a lot about each other, we know about the families, that human element is key. So I really enjoy that part of it.

(9:04 - 9:20)
I think it's really great that as big as this conference is, that there is accessibility. That you guys are here on the floor with us. You're not off in some executive suite in between the general sessions avoiding us.

(9:20 - 9:35)
You're out here. And it's not just us, the media, just like you said, MSPs in general that can walk up and say, hey, can I ask you a question? And most of the time you say yes. I don't know if I can always answer the question, but I'm absolutely here to listen and talk.

(9:35 - 9:43)
Again, it's what these shows are for, to sit down and connect and learn and talk and help each other out. All right. Well, Jeff, thank you very much.

(9:44 - 9:58)
I know your time is very valuable here. So thank you for sitting down with me here on Radio Row and looking forward to it. And I'll be following, of course, all the stuff that's going on, especially since Lardo has me on the Pitcher Patrol.

(9:59 - 10:06)
Oh, man. Lardo's got everybody working for him. And we'll be back in November for Connect, and we'll see you again then.

(10:06 - 10:08)
We'll see you at Connect. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, sir.

(10:08 - 10:12)
Appreciate it. All right, folks. That's going to do it here from IT Nation.

(10:12 - 10:18)
Jeff Bishop, General Manager of Products. And we'll see you next time. And until then, holla.