MSP, Mergers and Acquisitions

Thoma Bravo Acquires Continuum: Synergies With Bomgar, McAfee and More?

New Continuum owner Thoma Bravo also has ownership stakes in such companies as Bomgar, McAfee, Riverbed, SolarWinds (yup) and plenty more. So will Continuum explore partnerships with any of the Thoma Bravo investments we've listed below? Hmmm...

Related: Read all of our coverage about Thoma Bravo acquiring Continuum

We're not suggesting the following companies will definitely work with Continuum. Nor have we heard chatter about such relationships. Still, each of these Thoma Bravo investments holds some rather intriguing potential for Continuum. Take a look:

1. Bomgar provides secure access solutions for business, including remote support, privileged access management and identity management solutions. Continuum already has a remote control relationship with LogMeIn... but plenty of MSPs also leverage Bomgar. So a partnership could be in the making, ChannelE2E believes.

2. Digicert develops enterprise security solutions, and provides Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates to over 115,000 customers in more than 180 countries. I don't see instant synergies with Continuum -- which mostly partners with SMB-focused MSPs. But Continuum is developing an enterprise-class SOC (security operations center) to assist those MSPs...

3. Dynatrace specializes in application performance management (APM) and typically competes with Cisco AppDynamics, Datadog and New Relic. Those companies don't have a foothold in the SMB MSP sector. But as more customer workloads shift to the public cloud, Continuum and its NOC (network operations center) could eventually need some knowledge about APM management.

4. Empirix specializes in end-to-end network performance visibility, offering the ability to analyze customer behaviors, by application, in real-time. Still, Empirix is high-end stuff so I'm not sure there are near-term synergies with Continuum.

5. Imprivata provides authentication, identity and access solutions for healthcare organizations globally. No doubt, identity and access management (IAM) solutions are hot for MSPs and MSSPs. Continuum rival Kaseya, for instance, owns AuthAnvil. But Imprivata sounds very high-end and too vertically inclined for a Continuum relationship, ChannelE2E suspects.

6. McAfee recently regained its independence from Intel. The company is reasserting its channel and MSP relationships. Potential partner synergies with Continuum are numerous, though Continuum has existing, strong relationships with the likes of Webroot.

7. Qlik specializes in visual analytics. The company's portfolio supports reporting and self-service visual analysis. MSPs need those types of capabilities as they strive to make data-driven decisions for their businesses and their customers.

8. Riverbed specializes in application performance infrastructure. Generally speaking I think Riverbed's portfolio is too high end for Continuum's MSP base. But application performance definitely impacts customer experience (CX)... and Continuum is a customer experience specialist for MSPs.

9. SailPoint provides identity governance solutions with on-premises and cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) software. Look at item 5 above, and I've already mentioned that IAM is incredibly important to MSPs and their customers. But I don't know if SailPoint is a potential SMB solution.

10. SolarWinds. Whoops. This is actually a rival. And it's clear SolarWinds MSP and Continuum will remain rivals.

11. SRS Software develops electronic health records (EHR) and healthcare IT (HCIT) solutions for specialists and other high-performance physicians. This is likely too niche for Continuum, but a good portion of the company's MSP base likely focuses on healthcare cusotmers.

12. T2 Systems is a technology-focused parking management systems provider. What does that have to do with Continuum? Not much. Until you consider the MSP industry's need to push beyond PC and server management toward IoT device and sensor management. While I'm not suggesting a T2 partnership will emerge, I could imagine Continuum speaking with T2 about key IoT monitoring and management trends.

See any other potential synergies between Continuum and Thoma Bravo's investment portfolio? Let me know.

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.