Business continuity, Channel partner events, MSP, Virtualization

Artisan Acquires DaaS Platform, Rebrands Cloud Channel Company

Artisan Infrastructure has rebranded the company as Neverfail and acquired Vertiscale, which develops a Workspace-as-a-Service (WaaS) platform for managed service providers (MSPs). The cloud company confirmed both moves this morning and will brief partners and customers during ChannelCon 2016 this week in Hollywood, Fla.

Led by CEO Brian Hierholzer, Neverfail (formerly Artisan) is one of the better known providers of IaaS, business continuity and cloud services purely to the channel. But the 'Artisan Infrastructure' name may have been artificially limiting since the company has pushed well beyond its infrastructure heritage over the past two years or so.

The former Artisan (now Neverfail) acquired business continuity technology from Just One Data (a startup on Long Island) sometime in the past year and launched the technology as Neverfail in February 2016. Now, the newly branded Neverfail company has snapped up Vertiscale for an undisclosed sum.

Neverfail Acquires Vertiscale WaaS

Vertiscale competes with a range of DaaS (desktop as a service) providers focused on MSPs. Several DaaS and WaaS companies in the sector have quietly been negotiating potential M&A deals since at least March (see item 5 here), ChannelE2E believes.

More than a traditional DaaS and WaaS offering, Vertiscale claims that its platform has specific capabilities for healthcare compliance (see item 7 here). With the Vertiscale buyout, Neverfail customers:

"now have access to one of the industry’s largest portfolios of cloud-based technologies from a single vendor. Neverfail’s single-pane-of-glass management of multiple mission-critical services provide MSPs and enterprise customers with a simple, efficient way to expand their service offerings and improve their profitability."

As part of the corporate rebanding, Vertiscale will now be known as Neverfail Workspaces. The platform enables mobility, BYOD and security for end customers who want to access applications from any device at any time, the company asserts.

Neverfail Next Moves

As it pushes into various cloud platform services, Neverfail will also need to balance relationships with a range of channel-oriented ISVs that host their applications in the company's data centers.

Among the key names to know: Chris Wiser, MSP channel chief for Neverfail. Wiser will be on hand at ChannelCon 2016 this week in Orlando, Fla. A former MSP owner himself, Wiser is join ChannelE2E's panel on Exit Strategies (Wed, August 3, 9:45 a.m. ET).

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.