Speaker 1: 00:03 Welcome to the tech in 20 minutes podcast where you will meet new tech vendors and learn how they can help your business. At Clark Sys, we believe tech should make your life better. Searching Google is a waste of time, and the right vendor is often one you haven’t heard of before. Hi. I’m Max Clark.
Speaker 1: 00:19 And today, I’m talking with Rick Vibas, VP of Global Channels for LogMeIn. Rick, thanks for joining.
Speaker 2: 00:24 Thanks for having me, Max.
Speaker 1: 00:26 Yeah. Rick, at a high level, what does LogMeIn do?
Speaker 2: 00:29 So we are the leader in the work remote environment. So anything that you need for working remotely, whether it’s video, whether it’s, managing infrastructure, obviously, voice. That’s just a few of the the many aspects that we cover.
Speaker 1: 00:47 Now, LogMeIn is a roll up, and you have a lot of different brands that you operate that people might be more familiar with. So so what are those different brands and divisions that you that you have?
Speaker 2: 00:57 Sure. So LogMeIn has been around for a while through various acquisitions. Jive would be on the voice side. There’s also LastPass, which is our, password authentication program and identity program. Then we have the GoToMyPC and Rescue brands, which cover, management of infrastructure.
Speaker 2: 01:18 So someone working remote can still go in, manage your your PCs, manage your systems. And those those are the core, obviously, and and the video, obviously, is huge right now, which is the GoToMeeting platform.
Speaker 1: 01:29 I believe you have, Grasshopper as well. Correct?
Speaker 2: 01:31 We do. And Grasshopper is more of the, you know, more for the smaller users. It’s a great brand, very simple. It’s not a huge brand for us, but, it it’s a very easy to use platform.
Speaker 1: 01:44 So, I mean, we’re talking about distributed password management for enterprises, voice collaboration tools, video tools, webinar tools, remote Sure. You know, I mean, that’s that’s it’s a pretty big portfolio. Mhmm. So in general, distributed and remote workforce has been a big topic for many years. Obviously, LogMeIn has been positioning around that for a while.
Speaker 1: 02:06 And with the COVID 19 pandemic, we see a a big change in needs for remote workforce. So what have you guys experienced and what are you seeing and and what have you done to help your customers as it relates to adapting to COVID and going, in some cases, from on prem to remote very quickly?
Speaker 2: 02:23 No. Well, you know, unfortunately, we’re in this time of the pandemic to where companies that are offering services like ours are, you know, serving a need. And it’s a need that we saw really that was we thought would really progress a lot in 2021, 2022, and everything’s been accelerated to today’s world. And time will tell. I mean, we’re gonna see probably the next 6 months will tell.
Speaker 2: 02:49 Will people be going more into these 20, $30000, 30,000 square foot buildings, or are they gonna be, you know, splitting it up a little bit and doing more remote and more not? Business has been brisk, obviously. We’re thinking it’s gonna be more of a trend that way than than not. What we’ve done in in the past month or so is we’ve handed out 6,000 emergency work from home kits to various sectors, primarily health care, finance, automotive, insurance. And what these are, 90 day kits that give them everything they need to do to operate at a 100% capacity except for the physical in person meetings.
Speaker 2: 03:29 And, and we may extend it even depending on how this, this whole new world goes. And then, obviously, the the hope is that they’re gonna see the value in that and and continue service with us.
Speaker 1: 03:43 So let’s talk about the GoToMyPC for a moment. Because unlike a lot of other virtual or cloud infrastructure, are you talking about desktop and clouds, this application, this platform, you’re connecting to resources or computers that you already have. You don’t require a reconfiguration of IT or migrations. Can you give me a little bit of expansion on that?
Speaker 2: 04:03 Sure. Well, I mean, we have a couple different programs that that are related. So we have our central program, which is remote monitoring, managing. We have go to my PC that allows anyone else to get into a PC, whether it’s managed or not. Those are big differences.
Speaker 2: 04:18 A lot of times, you need to have someone at a PC that’s accepting, giving you the rights to get in. Say, yes. I wanna let them get in and work. In today’s world, you can’t do that because a lot of times, these these desktops are in an an unmanned office right now. But that’s where all the data is.
Speaker 2: 04:35 So we have the GoToMyPC. We also have Rescue and and, like I mentioned, on Central. So send Rescue would be remote troubleshooting of desktops, laptops, phone systems, anything remotely. So, I mean, we’re covering the gamut. And when I you know, it’s interesting.
Speaker 2: 04:50 I had a a colleague in the industry that because of my history, we called it frenemies. We competed a lot, but always stayed friends. And and most recently made a a great comment and just said, hey, Rick. Did you ever think that, in today’s world and when you started this whole process of of going with LogMeIn that you would actually be with probably the most relevant company in today’s world that’s out there right now. And it’s true.
Speaker 2: 05:15 It as far as the full package being able to offer everything.
Speaker 1: 05:19 Normally we talk about, you know, how would somebody know that they you know, if they’re not technical and they don’t know a term like UCaaS or DaaS, you know, how would they be able to diagnose that in in common English? But but now we’re really saying, you know, if you have a centralized if you have an office and you can’t go into your office and your computers are in your office and you need to work remotely, I mean, that’s what you’re enabling. Right? I mean, there’s you know, and and beyond that, it’s communications. How do you enable phones and how do you enable collaboration?
Speaker 1: 05:46 How do you you know, customer communications, etcetera. I mean, so it’s it’s a very interest you know, that shift has changed pretty pretty significantly for you.
Speaker 2: 05:54 It it has. What’s interesting is the way the original company was founded, and I’m I’m pretty sure it was the log me in and not the go to my PC log me in portion. The way it was founded was the owner had an office, and he had to keep going, driving 10 miles into the office. Had just to get stuff out of his computer to go back home and finish working or whatever. And I wanna say it was in it it was definitely in Europe.
Speaker 2: 06:22 And developed this program 20 years ago to just be able to get into his own computer just to make life easier. And who would think, you know, as as we come in today’s world that it would be just so much more relevant than than he probably ever expected saying, but wait a minute. Maybe everybody could should and could be doing this.
Speaker 1: 06:42 You know, LogMeIn is a very unique program in the space. But when you look at your UCaaS and your collaboration or your video tools, you know, what what makes LogMeIn better than, you know, other people in the market? Like, what is your actual, you know, focus and niche and sweet spot?
Speaker 2: 06:56 Sure. Well, I like to say that it it’s business grade. So there’s other brands out there. I’m on them with family and friends and all. The GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar platforms, especially, are designed to to maintain its integrity and secure and to make sure that we’re not getting 200 people on a video and not being able to understand what everybody says.
Speaker 2: 07:19 So in its 17 years of existence, there there’s never been a breach that that we’re aware of. And the integrity, the quality of the service, and and the ease of use, obviously. So that goes on to the the the GoToMeetings. There’s a GoToTraining. There’s a GoToWebinar version of it.
Speaker 2: 07:35 Each one has its own niches. And, I’ll tell you, I live on them all day long. It it’s it’s bizarre. I tell people the only difference in my world now from all the meetings is I got a shower earlier because before I was on the phone, nobody saw me. So now it it it’s pretty cool.
Speaker 2: 07:50 And then the voice is you know, the the Jive platform, again, it’s it’s it’s totally all the technology that we have, we own, which is really key. We’re not, dependent on licensing fees and, being able to get certain processes and programs approved to make changes. If there’s something that we need in today’s world, we have the team. We have we own the team, the engineer, the technology to be able to make those changes, make those improvements. And, the the reputation of Jive and I’m not even sure why it was, but it was even my perception before I came here, was for maybe the the smaller SMB customers.
Speaker 2: 08:30 But, actually, a majority of Jive’s business, which is now transitioning to the GoToConnect brand, is enterprise level. And it works amazing, and it integrates with with, you know, the rest of our systems pretty well, which GoToConnect is really that package. It’s the voice. It’s the the video and the the various platforms. So So can you give me an
Speaker 1: 08:49 can you give me an idea of of who your existing customers are? I mean, is this are you heavy heavy into specific industries or verticals or geographies? I mean, what how does this break out?
Speaker 2: 08:58 Yeah. No. So finance, legal, insurance, automotive is huge. And education. We are by far the leader in in education, k to 12 especially, because our systems will not only integrate with the learn from home, but it’ll integrate with the most popular systems that I’m not don’t don’t ask me the names of them.
Speaker 2: 09:17 I don’t I don’t know. But I’ve read the the stuff, with their most popular systems. So, I mean, integrating with everything as far as their PA systems to their emergency announcement systems. So we literally have experts in house that just represent those products and, those silos. So if you have if you’re working in a certain vertical, we can actually put a team on it that will that only focuses on that.
Speaker 2: 09:42 So we have an insurance team. We have an education team. I mean, that’s that’s the next thing. When a partner brings us an an opportunity like that, we will run hand in hand with them. We won’t go to them without the partner unless the partner wants us to, but we will go in hand in hand and sell it for them.
Speaker 2: 09:58 We’ll we’ll do it soup to nuts.
Speaker 1: 10:01 I mean, is there a a minimum size and a maximum size in terms of seat count? I mean, do you support people that are, you know, 1, 2, 10, 20 employees? And, I mean, how and then so on the upper end, like, how how big do you go?
Speaker 2: 10:14 I mean, we have some huge enterprise customers out there. And and, I mean, what we’re trying to do on the smaller end, and everyone is seeing this, it’s an economies of scale where the 5, 10 seat deals, 50 anything really under 50 seats, they get expensive to implement for the reward at the end. So we’re really trying to work on more automation tools for the smaller end customers. That’s that’s high on the road map for the company. You know, automation is key.
Speaker 2: 10:40 More APIs, more e commerce for that size customer. But our focus is definitely on mid to to large size enterprise.
Speaker 1: 10:48 So I mean, there’s we’ve talked about a lot of different services here. Can you give me can you give me an example of guidance of price points? I mean, what are we talking about in terms of seat counts or licensing structure? I mean, how do you actually price these different things, and and what’s how to how to how do you approach that?
Speaker 2: 11:02 Yeah. So thanks, Max, because I’m 2 weeks into this role. I appreciate it. I can tell you that the reputation has always been super economical. What I’m seeing out there, obviously, depends on the package.
Speaker 2: 11:14 But everything is gonna is ranging from yeah. We touched on LastPass, which I would love to talk about because I really think that’s an advantage that that we have. You know, if you’re doing a LastPass enterprise, you can get it for the it’s 6, $7 a a head. You know? Then you add some you get our, GoToConnect program that has the voice and the video and and other services on it.
Speaker 2: 11:33 I mean, you can be looking to minimize the size of the customer, $15 to $30, which includes everything. So extremely economical. I mean, any companies nowadays, it we’ve been you and I have been doing this a long time, and we knew this was eventually coming. But it went from all these services being, oh, it’s coming. It’s coming.
Speaker 2: 11:52 It’s coming. To almost being commoditized, and then you have to add the other value adds to it, like our LastPass and the go to go to MyPC and such.
Speaker 1: 12:01 So let’s talk about LastPass a little bit more. You know, it’s it’s a it was a very exciting acquisition, you know, for me, and it’s a unique capability and service. There’s not a lot of offerings in the space that does what LastPass does. So what does LastPass do, and and what do you get from using LastPass?
Speaker 2: 12:18 Yeah. So I’m a I’m a user. Perfect. I gotta be careful how how I say that. I’ve been a user for years.
Speaker 2: 12:28 And not knowing it was even part of part of the the last or the LogMeIn portfolio. So the joke was when I was going through the process here and speaking with our CEO, he’s an amazing guy, great vision. And I told him, listen. I’m not sure where this is going, but whatever happens, don’t take away my LastPass. I don’t know my passwords anymore.
Speaker 2: 12:45 So LastPass has a consumer version out there that I I really encourage people to try. I mean, it goes anywhere from free to, like, $2.2 or $3. It gives you a sense of what it does. So it manages all your your passwords. You put in a password.
Speaker 2: 12:59 It will ask you if you want LastPass to remember it. But, obviously, there’s there’s other programs that do simple remember your password. Well, this has a master password associated with it. You know, it can do facial recognition. It can do fingerprint recognition.
Speaker 2: 13:15 It, can allow you for, single sign on, double authentication. So someone can’t just go on to your PC if you don’t have it set up like that and log in to something. But it also will go you can download the app on your cell phone, put it on all your PCs, all your laptops. And so no matter where I am, I’m in a hotel, anything. If I need a password, obviously, I’m I’m in a hotel computer, let’s say.
Speaker 2: 13:38 I’m not gonna go and download the app on their computer, but I can go to lastpass.com, log in to my account, and access any of my my 84 passwords from there just by searching. I can search financial and see all my banking, and I can see all my insurance and so on. So that’s the consumer version. When you take it another level to the enterprise version, imagine a company that can manage all these. When you work at a company, you’re the typical company has about 14 different passwords at a minimum to to get into their HR platforms and their their insurance and their portals and everything.
Speaker 2: 14:12 Well, the company can manage all that with 1 so all the person needs to understand is one password. It’ll do a single sign on from there. If the person actually leaves, it could obviously, they shut it down with one shot, and I have them go to every department saying shut them down, because the person never actually the employee never actually knows the individual password that was assigned. It only knows that one master password. And then it has, it can be set up by geography.
Speaker 2: 14:37 So you can actually set up so this computer can never log on from anything that’s in my LastPass outside of this radius of this ZIP code or this this region. So it can be set up in various different ways. And the single sign on is awesome. I mean, I’ve been using it since I’ve been here because we’re on, obviously, the enterprise version. And, you know, I just click on single sign on, and it remembers everything, and and it goes.
Speaker 2: 15:00 And then now they’re we just released, LastPass identity, which obviously goes into more and I don’t have all the details on it, but more identity management. And there’s other programs out there similar, but not that blend all this together.
Speaker 1: 15:13 So so what I love about your response here is, your experience with LastPass is predominantly as a user of LastPass. And there’s a lot of security systems in the market that really talk about it and doesn’t necessarily make people’s lives easier. You know, but your answer and your response is really that this has made your life easier and better.
Speaker 2: 15:30 Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: 15:32 And it’s it’s a really you know, these these tools are fantastic when implemented because people like it. They don’t like having to change their password every 90 days and like, you know, sequence up numbers. Remember, did I use an at sign or an asterisk for an information point? And then, of course, the enterprise controls of being able to rapidly provision people, rapidly change passwords across all of your IT resources, and not have to, you know, have that interaction with people. Like, okay.
Speaker 1: 15:57 It’s password change day. You know, good luck. Alright. And, you
Speaker 2: 16:00 know, Max, for sales partners, it’s it’s a differentiator. You know, like you said before, no one else is offering it. I don’t think any of the other players in the industry have this on their road map, and they say, I wanna be a path password authentication company. I can’t imagine it. I imagine matter of fact, some of them, I think, will be utilizing it, and might maybe even offering it in the the future.
Speaker 2: 16:21 But it’s a differentiator when you’re when you’re need a door opener for the customer. And I’m I’m a big believer, as a user, especially, that once that you you go in the door and if when you bundle it with our other services, they don’t it’s very sticky. They don’t wanna all of a sudden say, no. I don’t want this. I really wanna remember my 130 passwords.
Speaker 2: 16:42 Thank you. Not for the price point. It’s not worth it for them to say to say no. And, you know, you mentioned something before about, you know, different you know, having to go in and understand all your passwords. It’ll also change the password automatically at whatever sequence you want.
Speaker 2: 16:55 So you can say, I want you to change my password to some random 15 digit password every month. And you never know that. You you’re just going in. You’re it’s just it’s already loaded. You don’t even you will never even know that password, but it’ll just change it.
Speaker 2: 17:11 I mean, just more security, obviously, which is huge on everyone’s mind nowadays, especially working remote because people are accessing systems that they never accessed remote remotely before.
Speaker 1: 17:20 You know, I don’t know what the exact stat is, but I know a a significant percentage of breaches that do occur because people have password reuse. And a password gets compromised in one platform, and then that password was used on an email system and an email that has access to other systems. And next thing you know, like bad things happen. So having having a system that can track lots of different passwords and manage those passwords for you is is extremely advantageous for everyone, and it drastically improves, you know, your security position with very little energy. You know, somebody who’s thinking about log me in, and is this a fit, and could these you know, could your services and your different tools make my life better?
Speaker 1: 17:58 I mean, how’s what’s their path with you? I mean, is there an evaluation, download you know, keep you know, like with LastPass, you have a consumer version that you can go to enterprise. Like, how do they how do they try it? How do they look at it? How do they evaluate?
Speaker 1: 18:09 And how do they move forward?
Speaker 2: 18:11 As a sales partner or an end user? End users. Yeah. So most of our products all have a demo process. So you can get either a a free version or a a temporary, you know, here’s 30 days free.
Speaker 2: 18:24 We do that all day long. I mean, that’s, I I think that’s the secret sauce for any of these types of services. And let them try it out. And that includes our our sales partners. If we have any of our our quality sales partners out there, you know, they can get various versions to utilize because they have to drink the Kool Aid as well.
Speaker 2: 18:41 Right? It’s easier to sell when you’re using it. And, yeah. So that’s the best way. Most of them are online.
Speaker 2: 18:47 You know, part of my position here is taking all our different brands and bringing them all together. Like you said, there’s various different worlds. So Mavenix so it’s one website, one everything, one one contract, one program. And, there are so many. One things that one of the things that drew me here was was the product set, also the the material that’s out there.
Speaker 2: 19:07 So you can literally go on to YouTube and put LastPass Pass in, and there’s a ton of trainings, demos, you you name it on there, and and same thing with the other products. So, yeah, I I just need to get all that put in one place, but it’s it’s all there. But we’re happy to help anyone that needs that.
Speaker 1: 19:23 Awesome. Well, Well, Rick, thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: 19:26 Thanks, Max.
Speaker 1: 19:28 Thanks for joining the Tech in 20 Minutes podcast. At ClarkSys, we believe tech should make your life better. Searching Google is a waste of time, and the right vendor is often one you haven’t heard of before. We can help you buy the right tech for your business. Visit us at clarksys.com to schedule an intro call.
