Blog | June 12, 2014

Datto Partner Conference 2014 Notebook

By The Business Solutions Network

BSM-data

Last week I attended data backup solutions provider Datto’s annual partner conference in Las Vegas. The two and a half day event was loaded with big announcements and great information. Here are my notes in case you weren’t one of the lucky ones who could make it to the sold out event.

  • 500 attendees. Like I said in the intro, sold out.
  • Lots of growth at Datto:
    • They’ve hired 40 people in the last 90 days, mostly for support and development
    • In the last 12 months, they’ve hired 170 people, tripled their R&D, went 24/7/365 support, and opened a couple new offices
  • Four big announcements were made:
    • Retention-based billing is now available for all SIRIS appliances
    • Their single-most requested feature is now a reality — end-user portals
    • SnapNas 1.1 has iSCSI support, CHAP authentication, and local smart search for file restorers
    • Virtual SIRIS — "Virtual SIRIS enables Datto partners to provide their clients with a business continuity solution that operates on the same platform as their existing virtual infrastructure. At launch, the product will be compatible with VMware ESXi versions 5.1 and 5.5."
  • What’s next? Big focus on support and reliability to continue to lower their MSP partners’ TCO, and a focus on sales and marketing on partner enablement via lead gen
  • Austin McChord, Datto’s founder and CEO, said that one of their biggest challenges is keeping up with the growth the company’s MSP partners is forcing them to go through.
  • Jeff Ma (@Jeffma) was the keynote. The MIT grad and his peers took card counting to a new level and won big in Vegas. There’s a book and the movie ‘21’ based on their exploits. While Ma attempted to translate his experiences into business lessons, more often than not, his stories were more cool than anything else.
  • One of Ma’s lessons is to avoid Groupthink. He told a story of a time when math was telling him to play his Blackjack hand one way, but peer pressure from those at the table was making him feel like he should make a different decision. He cautioned that this same thing can happen in business, when a group will make decisions not on the right data, but to avoid conflict of one or more people in the group.

Following are some of the top Tweets from the event: