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Is anyone really surprised vendors that enable managed service providers (MSPs) are reporting strong earnings? You should be, at least a little. At least six years into the managed services transformation of the channel, there’s still headroom for growth, as reflected by the continuing performance of companies like ConnectWise and N-Able Technologies.

N-Able reported this week it more than doubled the number of SMB customers under management by MSPs using the company’s remote monitoring and management tools. The number of companies grew from 22,000 to more than 47,000 in the last 18 months, N-Able said. The number of devices under management has also skyrocketed more than 175 percent in the same period.

N-Able CEO Gavin Garbutt attributes the growth to the company’s 100 percent IT coverage service delivery capability and “freemium” offerings that expose the RMM capabilities to new service providers that either haven’t offered managed services or use competitive tools.

“We’ve done our homework and invested wisely to ensure our MSPs are well positioned to lead the market and deliver managed IT services to their customers with greater ease, efficiency and profitability,” Garbutt said, in a statement.

Managed services growth is also seen in the growth of professional services automation (PSA) vendor ConnectWise and its satellite RMM vendor LabTech Software.

ConnectWise, which provides the management software for enabling services businesses to run more efficiently, now has more than 55,000 users of its platform worldwide. Growth was so robust in the first half of 2011, ConnectWise is planning to add 55 new positions and move to a new, larger facility in Tampa that will house the operations of ConnectWise and LabTech, a company partially owned by ConnectWise Capital.

“With 55 new employees and growing, we are attracting our industry’s top talent in technical and administrative fields and expect to continue this into the future,” said ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini in a statement.

A sampling of other managed services enablers such as Autotask, TigerPaw, Kaseya and Level Platforms would likely yield similar reports. In conversations with Channelnomics, each of these companies report robust and sustained growth in the number of MSPs using their tools and the number of devices under management.

Part of the growth can be attributed to the number of software and hardware vendors integrating their applications with these PSA and RMM tools. As big software vendors such as Symantec and hosting companies such as Rackspace look to leverage the channel to facilitate their services-based growth, they’re partnering with companies like Autotask, ConnectWise and Level Platforms as gateways to the MSPs and end user customers.

These reports of growth are difficult to verify since nearly all of the managed services enablement vendors are privately held. Assuming the opaque growth reports are true, the claims reflect the ample amount of unaddressed services opportunities in the end-user market.

People ask all the time what the true adoption rate or penetration of managed services is in the channel – and no one really knows. By some estimates, between 40 and 60 percent of the channel offers some form of managed services. That’s probably not far off the mark. However, the blanket phrase “managed services” is deceiving, since some are using rudimentary tools to remotely connect to customer machines for what would otherwise be break/fix services. Persistent service delivery and a complementary services business model likely have a lower adoption rate. And that’s the opportunity for growth.

Some market observers would argue VARs and systems integrators that haven’t adopted managed services have long since lost a “first mover” advantage. That’s far from true. Many systems integrators have staunchly loyal customer bases that would gladly contract a service from their “trusted advisor” before defecting to a rival. Likewise, there are some VARs that will skip managed services and go straight to the cloud. This doesn’t mean they will really skip managed services, but they will adopt a blended model that takes both delivery models into consideration.

And, of course, the end user community cannot be dismissed from the equation. Tens of thousands of end user organizations ranging from small businesses to multinational enterprises have adopted managed services. However, there are tens of millions of businesses in the United States alone, and millions more in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa that are just now considering services alternatives. The growth potential is huge, and that will continue to buoy the growth legacy and newcomer MSPs as well as companies like ConnectWise and N-Able.

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Lawrence M. Walsh is CEO and president of The 2112 Group, a technology business advisory service that specializes in optimizing indirect channels and partner relationships. He’s also the executive director of the Channel Vanguard Council. He is the former publisher of Channel Insider and editor of VARBusiness Magazine. You can reach him at lmwalsh@the2112group.com.

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Larry Walsh:@lmwalsh2112| Channelnomics: @channelnomics