Guest: Peter Bretton (LinkedIn)
Company: NinjaOne (Twitter)
Show: Let’s Talk

While there are many solutions available that solve individual problems associated with managing endpoints, it can be easy to fall into the trap of the stack becoming a pile. Tool sprawl can not only make it difficult to manage the range of different devices in different environments efficiently but can have an impact on costs too.

In this episode of TFiR: Let’s Talk, Peter Bretton, Sr. Director of Customer & Product Marketing at NinjaOne, talks about some of the key challenges customers are facing with managing endpoints and how NinjaOne is helping them tackle this with their platform. Bretton goes on to talk about their upcoming release of mobile device management (MDM) capabilities and how this is helping them with a customer-driven experience.

• Bretton introduces us to NinjaOne telling us their mission is to help companies manage endpoints, whether that is a workstation, laptop, or other device. He talks about how it is a challenge to manage the many different types of devices and environments efficiently and how their platform helps solve this challenge.
• While the company’s key focus has been on everything from servers, networking devices and virtual machines, Bretton explains that over the past year or so, the company has been developing additional capabilities. He tells us about their upcoming release of mobile device management capabilities which will extend the offerings to include smartphones to servers.
• One of the key struggles enterprise customers face in managing devices is that there are so many point solutions that solve individual problems that these can lead to tool sprawl. Bretton talks about how NinjaOne’s platform brings together all your devices into a single pane of glass to reduce the costs and complexities associated with tool sprawl.
• Bretton discusses the benefits of the platform: being able to leverage automation to expand the capabilities, better visibility of the environment as a whole, and reducing the training costs which can occur when different teams manage different devices with different tools.
• With such a rapidly changing market, NinjaOne has been keen to expand to include the full set of devices people need to manage rather than just those in the traditional device space. Their upcoming mobile device management capability set aims to address this.
• NinjaOne has just completed the rollout of its Summer 2023 release. Bretton talks about the three pillars of the release: providing more visibility in its platform, more opportunities for automation, and a “maniacal” focus on their customers and their needs. He goes into depth about some of their customer’s biggest asks such as a patching dashboard, and their device grid, and an update on their condition set.
• While generative AI is being used in entry-level ways in their industry, Bretton explains that NinjaOne would need to conduct a thorough risk assessment before delivering on generative AI because everything they do needs to minimize risk and to have a positive impact on their customers.
• NinjaOne’s top priority is serving their customer base, and their advisory board meets regularly with their customers. The company also has a public roadmap that enables customers to make suggestions and vote on what they would like to see.
• Bretton gives us an oversight of what we can expect from NinjaOne later in the year, such as the mobile device management capabilities mentioned earlier. He explains why this is such a key update and how this is helping them to deliver a truly unified endpoint management solution.

This summary was written by Emily Nicholls.