StarLeaf Rolls Out Communications Failover Service To MSPs: Exclusive

Videoconferencing and UC services have turned into business-critical platforms over the past two years. StarLeaf is giving partners another feather to put in their collaboration cap with its enterprise communications failover service for Teams, Webex and Zoom, the company tells CRN exclusively.

Videoconferencing specialist StarLeaf is making its enterprise communications failover service, StarLeaf Standby, available through the channel, the company told CRN exclusively.

StarLeaf Standby lets businesses stay connected and collaborate in the event of an outage, service interruption or security incident. It’s adding a layer of business continuity to communication services for MSPs at a time when many employees are still working remotely, are off the campus network and are still very much dependent on real-time communication solutions, said Mike Tumalty, chief sales officer for StarLeaf.

The service provides automatic meeting failover to StarLeaf’s platform when primary business communications services, specifically Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex and Zoom, are unavailable. The addition of StarLeaf Standby can improve customer satisfaction with an MSP, while further differentiating it with a unique communications disaster recovery offering and adding another avenue of recurring revenue to their unified communications and collaboration practice, Tumalty said.

“We see resellers and MSPs as a key market for us. Our history and success as a business has been built on the shoulders of the partner ecosystem,” he said. “We’re now on a partner recruitment drive to help us unlock this market for Standby.”

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MSPs or IT administrators using StarLeaf Standby during a service disruption can switch to a full suite of StarLeaf secure enterprise communication tools, at any scale, with a single click, the U.K.-based company said. All scheduled video or voice meetings are automatically re-created on StarLeaf and all attendees are sent updated invites with joining instructions by email or SMS. The service also supports instant messaging and chat failover.

Using StarLeaf Standby, users can also access and browse their Active Ddirectory offline. Once services are restored, the offering puts users back on their primary collaboration platform, the company said.

The security that StarLeaf Standby offers in the event of a cyberattack helps the product stand out from its competitors, Tumalty said. “In the event of an attack, you will likely have no access to your Office 365 calendar, and even if you did, you’d still need to reschedule manually, and sending invites from your email may not be the cleverest way of containing a threat,” he said. “Standby takes all of this away in our air-gapped, secure cloud to ensure business as usual.”

The offering makes for a good “attach sale” for partners, Tumalty said.

“Partners, who are already providing a range of services, might be selling [their customers] Teams or wraparound services for Office 365, can roll in Standby as an attach sale,” he said. “It can help partners differentiate their bid for business.”

Globally available StarLeaf Standby was officially launched in October to enterprise customers.

Channel-first StarLeaf will be actively recruiting new partners to its existing ecosystem over the next several quarters, Tumalty said.