Barracuda CEO: Intronis Cloud Backup Surpasses 2,400 MSP Partners

Barracuda Networks (CUDA) continues to gain momentum with managed services providers (MSPs), and much of the credit involves the security company's Intronis business unit, according to CEO BJ Jenkins.

"The MSP route to market is  area where we continue to invest to make solid progress," Jenkins said during an earnings call earlier this week. "We achieved another quarter of record billings and now have 2,400 partners on the Intronis platform."

Barracuda acquired Intronis, an MSP-centric business continuity platform provider, in September 2015. Over the past two years, Barracuda has gradually introduced its security products to the Intronis partner base. At the same time, Intronis itself has greatly expanded its product set.

"That business continues to perform very well for us," Jenkins added during the call. "It’s built on a monthly basis that delivers less variability. It’s been a steady climb and we have seen it continue to increase every month." Moreover, the business expanded into Europe last year and is starting to gain some traction there, he said.

Barracuda Appliances for AWS, Azure & Google

Barracuda also is gaining momentum with virtualized firewalls that run on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.  "Today the predominant demand is for AWS and for Azure -- that’s where we see the majority of the customers looking," Jenkins said. "We have seen customers now start asking to Google and we will be there to protect him if that’s where they want to go."

Barracuda's total revenue for its Q1 2017 was $94.2 million, up 9 percent from Q1 2016. GAAP net income slipped slightly to $2.7 million from $2.8 in Q1 2016.

On the one hand, Barracuda is well-positioned for the blending of business continuity and cybersecurity services -- especially as ransomware remains front-of-mind for partners and customers. But on the other hand, the company faces intense competition from pure-play MSP suppliers (i.e., Datto) and a range of next-generation cybersecurity companies.