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Work From Home: Free Technology Tools List

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, technology companies have introduced free offers to assist businesses with remote workers, work-at-home initiatives, cybersecurity and more.

Here's a list of free tools and offers, updated regularly, to assist channel partners and MSPs with their business needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Send Us Updates: Got a free offer or special effort designed to help MSPs and channel partners during the pandemic? Please email me details: [email protected]. We'll give it a look and potentially add it to the list below.
  • Friendly Reminder - Long-Term Costs: In most cases, the free offers below are for a limited time. Before you sign up for the services or deploy them for customers, understand the actual one-time or monthly costs you and your customers will face if you choose to continue consuming the product or service once the free promotion ends.
  • Memo to Software Companies: If you're offering free software, then please consider shifting to this simplified approach.
  • Thank You: This blog was inspired by a blog from MSP industry consultant MJ Shoer.

Blog originally published March 17, 2020. Final updates were made on Friday, June 12, 2020. This blog is now closed to updates.

Advertising, Marketing and Social Media

  • Facebook: The giant plans to award $100 million in cash grants and ad credits for up to 30,000 small businesses in over 30 countries to address the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters reports. The majority will be in cash grants and Facebook will disclose more details soon about how businesses will be able to apply for assistance,  the report says.
  • Google SMB Ad Credits: Google is offering $340 million in advertising credits to small and midsize businesses through the end of 2020.

Broadband

  • CenturyLink and Comcast have suspended Internet data caps during the coronavirus pandemic, The Colorado Sun reports.

Business Productivity, Cloud and Collaboration (Chat, File Sharing, Video Conferencing & More)

  • 8x8 is providing a free video conferencing tool.
  • Acronis Cyber Files Cloud: The file sync and share solution is free to all service providers through July 31, 2020. Acronis partners who are seeking additional details about the offer and Acronis should contact their account manager. 
  • Airfocus's platform to help product managers oversee product roadmaps has a free six-month offer.
  • Aisera, a Palo Alto-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions company that came out of stealth earlier this year, will provide free 24/7 AI technology-based assistance to healthcare providers and government agencies during the coronavirus pandemic.
  • AppsAnywhere is free for 90 days to help Higher Ed continue to deliver their courses by moving to online learning, and making their licensed software apps available to students and staff off campus and at home.
  • Arcserve is offering companies a 120-day free trial of Arcserve Cloud Direct to help ease the transition to remote work. Full details can be found here.
  • AudioEye is giving away their digital accessibility technology to companies so that people with disabilities, including many older adults, can navigate the web more easily.
  • Avaya Spaces: Avaya is offering free 60-day access to Avaya Spaces, a cloud meeting and team collaboration solution. Also Avaya is offering free 90-day licenses to a "wide range of Avaya unified communications solutions compatible with virtually every Avaya platform." Details are here.
  • Axcient Anchor licenses are free through June 2020 for all new users. Anchor is a file sync and sharing service designed for MSPs and their end-customers.
  • BlackBerry The following solutions and services are available free of charge for a 60 day period:
  • Cisco Systems: The company's overall COVID-19 strategy and associated free offers are here.
  • Clarity Wave is offering three months of free access, without any limit, to any new customers.
  • Commvault is giving free, instant access to its SaaS offering, Metallic Endpoint Backup and Recovery, with unlimited Microsoft Azure backup storage for up to 1,000 endpoint devices. The offering will be available in the U.S. and Canada through September 1, 2020. Additionally, Commvault is launching its Customer Care Program to help the data management community deal with COVID-19. 
  • CucumberStudio, a collaboration platform, is available for free. Also, free BDD training is provided through the Cucumber School.
  • Curacubby, an end-to-end commerce, billing and integrated payments platform built for the education market, is making several of its tools free until at least July 1, 2020 during the COVID-19 outbreak.
  • Distance Learning: 3CX has set up a dedicated page on its website for schools wishing to obtain a free license, for 1 year. The offer will be valid until the crisis has passed.
  • Element Form is offering free, secure medical forms to all medical professionals, healthcare workers, aid workers, governments, non-profits, individual doctors, nurses and private and government-owned hospitals.
  • Ericom is offering free 60-day licenses for AccessNow and Connect secure application access solutions, which provide anywhere, anytime access to business-critical applications.
  • Espressive, a provider of artificial intelligence (AI) for enterprise service management (ESM), hgas released a free 90-day Rapid Assistance Program to help enterprise organizations automate, track, and respond to employee questions about working from home.
  • The Freshchat platform with WhatsApp Business integration and chatbots is free for 3 months.
  • GanttPRO software for non-profit organizations is free for some use cases (hospitals, healthcare-related, and non-profit organizations) until the August 15, 2020
  • Google Hangouts for existing Google G Suite business and educations customers.
  • Hiver has introduced a free collaboration service for small businesses with less than 50 employees. The offering expires June 30, 2020.
  • Intermedia: AnyMeeting video conferencing and webinar service is free through December 31, 2020. Also there's one free Webinar Pro license per account -- which enables live broadcast events for up to 200 people.
  • Kryon, a robotic process automation (RPA) specialist, has introduced a free Full-Cycle Automation package, including Process Discovery Robots, Attended Automation Robots and Unattended Automation Robots, to enterprise companies. Companies are invited to complete this form before April 15, 2020 to confirm eligibility and receive access.
  • Laserfiche Cloud is free for six months to healthcare organizations.
  • Limeade, an employee experience company, is offering a free edition of its product starting immediately.
  • LogMeIn Emergency Remote Work Kits free for three months.
  • ManageEngine is offering free remote access tools until July 1, 2020.
  • Microsoft Teams is free for six months.
  • Microsoft Cloud Services: Microsoft 365 Business Basic is free in certain use cases to new subscribers for six months.
  • MSP360: The company is offering to MSPs free MSP360 Managed Backup for Desktop licenses. All new Windows desktop operating systems endpoints installed through April 30 (updated: deal extended to May 15; Macs now supported as well) are free for 90 days. After 90 days, MSPs are given the option to subscribe or opt out of the software. New and existing MSP360 customers qualify for the deal. Also available for free is MSP360 Remote Assistant, a remote desktop software that allows MSPs to connect to remote computers and provide support over the internet.
  • MYKI is free password management tool that helps to securely store and manage passwords and 2FA locally (offline) across devices.
    MyWorkDrive: The file share remote access solution has extended trials available through July 1, 2020.
  • Onshape SaaS CAD Solution, plus the associated learning resources, are free to high schools and universities that wish to offer collaborative virtual STEM and 3D CAD classes to students learning at home, on their own devices.
  • OnScale: The  provider of Cloud Engineering Simulation now offers free cloud core-hours to customers to promote customer safety and mitigate any productivity loss due to office shutdowns. Customers are invited to reach out to [email protected] with any questions about accessing OnScale and using free core-hours from home while working remotely during the outbreak.
  • Opmantek is offering free software to:
    • Australian Healthcare organizations or other organizations supporting the treatment of COVID-19; and
    • all levels of government that have historically provided grants or assistance to Opmantek since foundation – including Gold Coast City Council, The Queensland Government, The Commonwealth Government.
  • OwnBackup Gratitude is a free version of Salesforce cloud backup for qualified healthcare customers.
  • Poly is offering a free 20-minute consulting call from Poly Global Services now through May 15. This is available worldwide and can be found on our site here for more information.
  • Promon, the Oslo-based app security company, is offering its cybersecurity expertise and products for free to any organization, government body or public health institution that is helping to build a COVID-19 tracking app.

Certification, Community, Consulting and Education

  • 7 Figure MSP is opening up free membership to some of its programs to support IT & MSP businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The solutions span marketing & sales processes, tools and training to drive revenues. Visit the 7 Figure MSP website to schedule a time to learn more about this program.
  • CompTIA's eLearning course on the fundamentals is IT free of charge to anyone interested in learning more about technology. CompTIA and its industry partner BenchPrep are providing free 30-day licenses for the CertMaster Learn eLearning course for CompTIA IT Fundamentals (ITF+).
  • Erick Simpson is offering free MSP Mastered consultative managed services courses, including free video-based training.
  • MSPCFO is offering one hour of free consulting to help MSPs understand their client portfolio profitability and more.
  • SpliceNet Consulting and additional MSPs have started "No Law Firm Left Behind” with the goals of helping law firms (1) keep their doors open, (2) maintain staffing (3) maintain customer service. Free services are available through May 31, 2020.

Cybersecurity

  • 1Password Business is now free for six months.
  • Alert Logic MDR Essentials, featuring endpoint protection and vulnerability scanning, is free for 90 days.
  • AppGuard has introduced a free 90-day trial of AppGuard Solo.
  • Automox: The company's cloud-native endpoint hardening platform is now free for 90 days.
  • Beachhead Solutions: MSPs (both new and existing Beachhead partners) can add free licenses of SimplySecure. The free license offer can be used for MSPs’ own employees and/or for their clients and their employees. Request details here: [email protected]
  • Bitdefender is offering security solutions free for up to 12 months.
  • Breach Secure Now is offering this free guide to MSPs.
  • Carbonite and Webroot, owned by OpenText, have introduced data protection and cybersecurity offers that span
    • Carbonite Endpoint Protection
    • Carbonite Backup for Microsoft Office 365
    • Webroot Business Endpoint Protection
    • Webroot DNS Protection
    • Webroot Security Awareness Training
    • Find Carbonite details here and Webroot details here.
  • Checkmarx is offering a free 45-day codebashing trial to help developers write secure code from home.
  • Check Point Software has launched ZoneAlarm Web Secure Free solution, giving users free protection against phishing attacks, malicious downloads and dangerous websites.
  • CloudKnox Security is offering a 30-day free trial of its Cloud Identity Risk Assessment.
  • ConnectWise's Continuum Fortify for Endpoint Security In partnership with SentinelOne, ConnectWise is providing 100 free licenses to Continuum Fortify for Endpoint Security at no cost until June 30, 2020.
  • CoreView, a SaaS Management Platform (SMP) is offering free usage of its CoreLearning and CoreAdoption products for Microsoft Teams through September 2020. The tools help businesses and government agencies educate remote workers on how to effectively engage with and leverage Teams.
  • Coveware & Emsisoft: The companies are partnering to offer healthcare organizations free ransomware response services to healthcare organizations amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • CriticalStart and SentinelOne have partnered to provide free access to the MobileSOC platform through June 15.
  • CryptroStopper: The Starter package for five desktop licenses includes a free 60-day offer.
  • Crowdsourced Security: Bugcrowd's 90-day free offer details are here.
  • Cyber GRX is offering free risk assessments for secure remote access.
  • CyberCon is offering free cybersecurity assessments. Here are details.
  • Cyberhaven is offering a free cybersecurity assessment and 60 days free for the company's flagship security solution.
  • Cybriant has announced free access to its 24/7 Managed Detection and Remediation (MDR) service, powered by SentinelOne. The free offer runs March 16 through May 15, 2020. Cybriant's 24/7 monitoring and remediation service will be free for 60 days after the initial installation of SentinelOne.
  • Cyberinc is offering MSPs up to 10 free Isla remote browser isolation security subscriptions through August 31. After  August 31 subscribers can get the remainder of 2020 at no charge with purchase of a 3 year subscription. Remote Browser Isolation prevents malware from reaching the end point, reducing security events by as much as 80%, the company says.
  • Defendify: The company's Cybersecurity Essentials Package is free.
  • ESET has extended the free trial period from 30 to 90 days for:
  • Foresite is offering these free managed & cyber services: a vulnerability scan, a phishing awareness campaign for up to 250 users, firewall monitoring and management for 60 days, Office 365 monitoring for 60 days, a vulnerability patch management assessment and free cybersecurity advice. Find details here.
  • Fortinet is opening the entire online, self-paced catalogue of advanced Network Security Expert training courses for free.
  • The Global Cyber Alliance, a non-profit organization, has a Cybersecurity Toolkit for Small Business. All of the tools included in the toolkit are available for free.
  • Gurucul has announced two free services to help organizations protect themselves against COVID-19 cyber attacks that target their remote workers as well as third party service providers and contractors. The offerings deliver the Gurucul Unified Security and Risk Analytics platform as a cloud service with pre-configured and tuned algorithms that can detect unusual and high risk behavior patterns exhibited by remote worker as well as third party identities and devices, Gurucul asserts.
  • IRONSCALES is offering 60 day free licenses to companies with at least 200 mailboxes to help prevent, detect and respond to credential theft, fake COVID-19 emails, malicious and BEC emails. Here are details.
  • Kaspersky's core endpoint security products are free to medical organizations for six months. The offerings include Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud Plus, Kaspersky Security for Microsoft Office 365, Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business Advanced and Kaspersky Hybrid Cloud Security.
  • King & Union, ThreatConnect and D3i have announced a coalition offering free access to collaboration and threat intelligence solutions.
  • Nodeware's vulnerability management solution is free for 90 days if you purchase an annual license (not billed until after 90 days).
  • PCMatic: All current and future PC Matic MSP partners are now able to add unlimited endpoints to their accounts - at no additional charge through the end of June 2020.
  • ReaQta-Hive: The company is offering a BCP Endpoint Defense Package to help companies secure their remote endpoints. The BCP Package is a four-month free coverage available to all healthcare providers and qualified companies, and "easily deployable within minutes," ReaQta-Hive says.
  • Reflectiz has introduced a two-month free offer for website protection.
  • ReversingLabs offers an Emergency Assistance Package for industries heavily affected by coronavirus. The package offers 6 months of access to ReversingLabs Threat Analysis and Threat Hunting Program Consulting Services, Automated Threat Intelligence and Hunting Services, and ReversingLabs TitaniumCloud.
  • SecureAuth is offering its Intelligent Identity Cloud package for free through December 15, 2020,
  • SentinelOne: The autonomous cybersecurity platform company is making SentinelOne Core available free of charge beginning Monday, March 16 through Friday, May 16, 2020.
  • SlashNext is offering free six-month licenses for the company's new Mobile and Browser Phishing Protection solutions.
  • Sophos: For the duration of the COVID-19 global health concern, all Sophos customers can protect their employees’ personal PCs and Macs for free with our Sophos Home Commercial Edition program. See details here.
  • Spirion is offering security teams a 60-day no-cost trial of its Sensitive Data Manager software to search remote workforce computers to identify sensitive data.
  • SSH.com's PrivX, a privileged access management (PAM) solution, is free for up to 20 hosts
  • Stratozen has introduced free vulnerability scanning through May 30.
  • Sumo Logic has introduced free analytics solutions and Work From Home security options.
  • Synology has made all VPN Plus Licenses free.
  • Threatwatch's vulnerability management platform has a free tier.
  • Trend Micro has introduced free phishing training and simulations.
  • Trustwave introduced this free remote security information pack.
  • Trustifi, a SaaS email security company, is offering  no-cost, 90-day trial licenses of its email encryption solutions to companies of 50 employees or more. Interested parties can use this link to engage a Trustifi representative who can manage the 90-day trial subscription. There is no obligation to purchase after the trail.
  • Tufin Firewall Change Tracker is a new free tool that delivers real-time visibility into firewall rule changes for organizations of all sizes, the company says.
  • TwoSense is offering free continuous authentication for remote workers through July 2020.
  • Vectra is now offering their services for free through May 31, 2020, to detect account takeovers (ATOs) for Microsoft 365 accounts.
  • Venafi is offering a free six month trial of Venafi Cloud OutagePREDICT, which helps organizations avoid certificate-based outages. OutagePREDICT alerts users of potential certificate expirations ahead of time, so they can take action immediately and prevent application outages, the company says.
  • VERA, a data security company, has introduced a free 90 day use of their product for Work From Home scenarios.
  • VIPRE's Endpoint Cloud Protection platform is available for a free 60-day trial (total). To participate, take a free 30-day trial of VIPRE Endpoint Security Cloud and VIPRE will extend the trial another 30 days. Click here to get the 30-day free trial. To extend the trial, contact VIPRE sales, [email protected].
  • Zero Networks is offering a free network control service for 2020 to companies in travel, entertainment, hospitality, and other industries hit hard by COVID-19.
  • Zorus Inc. has announced two promotions to help MSP partners support their WFH clients. This promotion, through June 30, 2020, provides WFH proxy-based web security and web filtering. It also introduces remote employee web monitoring to provide ease-of-mind for business owners concerned about remote workers productivity. The promotion includes (1) Archon – Discounts on all Partner volume levels for granular web security and web filtering and (2) Triton add-on – 1 free year of employee web monitoring for each seat of Archon purchased. New partners can inquire here. For further info email [email protected].

IT Service Management, IT Support and Remote Monitoring

  • Addigy, a cloud-based Apple device management platform for businesses, institutions and MSP, on March 17 announced free 60-day access for organizations shifting to virtual work from home policies.

  • Application Monitoring: Entuity, a subsidiary of Park Place Technologies is offering customers a 90-day free trial of its SurePath application path monitoring module for Internet connections, WAN connections, and cloud-based applications.
  • Axonius is offering a free Asset Management Platform to healthcare providers, to help them evaluate their security posture and asset management practices to identify risk during the pandemic.

  • Banyan Security is offering a 90-day free trial of its remote access product.

  • Big Panda has unveiled free 90-day accelerator program called IT Ops from Home. It's designed to give IT Ops, NOC, DevOps, and SRE teams access to BigPanda’s event-correlation and incident-automation platform with no obligation for participants after the 90-day time period.
  • Cherwell Software has announced crisis management and remote work applications, and is also promoting free applications that are available in the company's new marketplace. Details are here.

  • Client Support Collateral: Alper’s team is offering free COVID-19 client support collateral.

  • Cognition360 views and analytics is free to the ConnectWise community for 60 days. The suite's Technician Efficiency Module allows visibility of a remote technical workforce to multiple variables.
  • ConnectWise: Free Control remote workforce offer through June 30 is explained here.
  • Corporate Armor is providing its remote desktop and unattended access tool, ISL Light, free to U.S. and Canada IT Channel Partners enabling clients to work remotely. Find details here.
  • Freshworks: Freshchat and Freshcaller are free for the next six months to small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
  • Fully Managed has unveiled a free Emergency Response Management (ERM) application to better track personnel and their interactions during the COVID-19 virus outbreak. It's based on ServiceNow's Emergency Response Management application. The offer includes free Fully Managed implementation services.
  • GMS Live Expert, a help desk provider to MSPs, has introduced free automated workstation tune-up services for MSPs.
  • IoT Monitoring: MachineMetrics is offering free access to MachineMetrics for any manufacturer involved with the production of Ventilator parts, test equipment, protective equipment, or any COVID-19 related manufacturing support, as well as to help companies produce new products, increase production volumes, and bring therapies faster to market.

  • PagerDuty is offering 20 free licenses for PagerDuty’s Team for six months. The ofer is for healthcare organizations that need to automate incident response.

  • Office 365 Productivity Monitoring Reports: MessageOps free offer details are here.

  • Qualys is offering free 60-day use of the company's remote patching service. The service will initially be available for Qualys customers. Delivery to others will be prioritized based on their signup date, the company says.
  • Riverbed Client Accelerator: The free 90-day trial optimizes at-home network connections to cloud, SaaS and on-premises applications, the company says.
  • Saucecode Tistro: The remote worker management tool is available free until June 3o, 2020.
  • ServiceNow: has announced four new community apps to help its customers, including government agencies and enterprises, manage complex emergency response workflows. These apps are now available at servicenow.com/crisisresponse for customers to access free of charge through September 30, 2020.
  • SolarWinds Take Control Plus, a standalone remote support solution, is free of charge for 90 days, if partners sign up before June 30, 2020.  For a limited time, Take Control Plus licenses also come with 25 additional end-user accounts for partners to extend to employees and clients.
  • Zerto is making these technology services available for free to organizations impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Networking Equipment

Cisco has launched two programs to help healthcare organizations obtain networking equipment at no cost. They include:

  • Cisco Pandemic Equipment Brokerage: Customers who can donate to wireless equipment to healthcare organization in need can fill out a Donor form and healthcare organizations can indicate what they need by filling out a Request form. Cisco will connect these organizations. Healthcare organizations who need email or virtual technical support can email Cisco at: [email protected]
  • Cisco Healthcare Rapid Response Network Bundle: For pop-up clinics or rapid response healthcare systems around the globe Cisco is offering free kits that include a router with LTE uplink, a switch with Power-over-Ethernet capability, and up to five wireless access points. To sign up, visit the Program Web page or customers can contact their account manager or representative for details.

AI, Analytics, Big Data and Research

  • Aptean since February has offered cost-free, limited-access GenomeQuest accounts to scientists researching the virus in the countries most impacted by COVID-19. GenomeQuest is the world’s largest intellectual property sequence database that uses proprietary sequence comparison algorithms for in-depth search and analysis.

Coronavirus & COVID-19 Free Offer Scams

Please note: Readers should double-check all special offers that they receive or learn about. The Federal Government has warned that some bogus free offers are actually malware, phishing and ransomware campaigns. In some cases, the cybercriminals imitate legitimate companies and offers.

Blog originally published March 17, 2020. Updated daily. 

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.

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