A Nerd’s Eye View On Empower Berlin

After not making the cut for Empower Frisco, I was delighted to attend my fourth Empower in Berlin this year. Empower is such an important event for me, I garner so much information over a few short days, not only on the direction N‑able is taking but from the countless conversations I have with partners and colleagues. I always leave Empower rejuvenated, full of new ideas, and keen to get back to the day job and implement them, and I work for N‑able, I can only imagine the value attendees take away from these annual events.

Pre-day – Monday

Empower itself kicked off on Monday evening with a welcome reception in the Expo hall, but before that we had a full pre-day of events, starting off with sessions for our elite and super-elite customers.

After a well-earned lunch the attention switched to N‑central and N‑sight certification, this is something customers of N‑able have longed to do, they want to be able to show off how well they know the products. I had the pleasure of hosting the N‑central certification course with my fellow Head Nerd Jason Murphy.

Now on paper, looking at a six-hour certification course where you’ll have to listen to Jason and myself, you’d think some people might have thought, “I think I’ll go sightsee in Berlin instead”. However, the room was packed to the point we had to bring in additional seating, it was great to see such a huge turnout. Over a hundred people sat there, listened, asked questions, and took in over four hours of content before sitting their exam. I’m delighted to say that we had an 80% pass rate, maybe our customers really know N‑central, or maybe Jason and I are amazing tutors but it was great to see such a high pass rate.

If you weren’t able to attend the certification sessions at Empower, fear not they are coming on demand into N‑ableU very soon, so keep and close eye out for them and you too can attain your N‑able certifications.

Day 1 – Tuesday

As is now the tradition, our VP of Partner Experience David Weeks led off Empower, highlighting that there were 39 countries represented at this event. This was truly a worldwide event, and for me the first truly global Empower. It’s a credit to all those who attended from as far away as North and South America, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand and it’s great to have so many different perspectives from all across the globe in the room.

Next up, our President and CEO John Pagliuca took to the stage for his keynote address, I always find John very insightful, he’s not afraid to tell it like it is and this was highlighted when he said and I might be paraphrasing slightly here: Disrupt or be Disrupted, you have to make the hard choices, whether that’s firing some of your customers or re-organising your services offerings to be successful in this industry you need to start with yourself and your own organisation. 

Cybersecurity: Real threats, real talk

Another key point that John made was: Good enough security is not good enough anymore when it comes to security, you need to provide best-in-class products. And that led us nicely into Robert Johnston General Manager of Adlumin at N‑able joining John on stage. Robert introduced us to a day in the life of a hacker, and what was interesting about this, was how the reality of the modern day hacker is very much different to what Hollywood portrays. Robert also spoke about how SMBs are three times more likely than enterprise-size organisations to be attacked as the perception is SMBs are a weaker target. If your customers feel, it’s never going to happen to them, they are exactly the organisations that hackers attack. What was also striking from Robert was that 66% of cyber-attacks used compromised identities, a simple username and password can do so much damage, so it’s critical we look at breach protection for our end users.

Next up we had our Cybersecurity Fireside Chat hosted by Dave MacKinnon CSO at N‑able. Dave was joined by Robert along with two partners Paul Cashmore, Co-Founder of Solace Cyber Global, and Vinod Paul, President of Align Managed Services. What I particular enjoy about Empower is the insights I learn from our customers, and Paul and Vinod had no shortage of them, too many to list here, but some that stood out included:

• Paul mentioned how the meantime to exploit has been expediated due to AI, so for all the positive benefits of AI, there are negative one too.
• Vinod highlighted that labour shortages continue to be a challenge, but with AI, it’s helping to enhance their existing staff, allowing them to do more efficiently.
• On the topic of ransomware, Paul highlighted that it’s the basics that are causing the issues, SAAS applications aren’t being managed or monitored like they should be.
• Vinod also mentioned how the power of NO is strong for MSPs, particularly if the partner wants to take shortcuts, the threat landscape has evolved so rapidly recently that as a trusted advisor to your end customers, you can’t allow them to cut corners and if the insist, as John said, you might have to consider firing them.

If I’d have left Empower after this session, I would have left full of new insights and different perspectives, but we were just reaching the mid-morning coffee break on day one.

New tools for MSPs

After some light refreshments, it was time to get the party started as Mike Adler Chief Technology and Product Officer at N‑able took to the stage to discuss: The Changing “Beats” of IT.  Mike as he’s known to do always has a unique approach to his keynotes at Empower and this year was no different as he was joined by his very own personal and N‑able security guru Rafael Ebert as he presented the new security challenges IT service providers face and how N‑able is helping deal with these challenges. 

Mike gave us some great insights into the direction N‑able is going, teasing us with some new products and features, but the highlight of his presentation if not the entire Empower event was when Mike announced that the new Vulnerability Management feature coming to N‑central and N‑sight RMM, would be included for free for all paid for nodes in both solutions. Maybe it was the party vibes of this presentation, but this announcement lead to huge cheers, the likes of which I’ve never witnessed at any similar event be it N‑able’s or anyone else in the past. This new addition which is now already available is sure to be a key tool in helping IT service providers secure their end users moving forward.

Integrations and breakout sessions

A hugely insightful morning was rounded out just before lunch with Tim Barton-Wines from Halo taking to the stage to announce that N‑able are the first RMM vendor to build an integration into HaloPSA, giving N‑central and HaloPSA partners a deeper integration between the two solutions. Tim also announced that integrations for Adlumin and Cove were coming to, strengthening the relationship between N‑able and Halo.

After lunch it was time for the breakout tracks and with six to choose from there was plenty of choice.  If you haven’t been to Empower before and you are considering going next year, I strongly recommend you bring a team, divide and conquer to get even more out of your Empower experience. My route for the afternoon took me first to listen to Nicole Reineke AI Strategist at N‑able and fellow Head Nerd Lewis Pope discussing using AI for good, and what pitfalls to avoid.

Then it was into the N‑central Roadmap presentation led by Darren Niller VP of Product Management, this is the highlight for many at Empower including myself, and Darren didn’t disappoint. Joined by Ewan Cameron and Meaghan Reineke on stage, we got some sneak peaks of what’s coming to N‑central including enhancements to the new Assets View, Vulnerability Management and the new Patch Management, that will support, granular patching on Windows, Mac and Linux.

I rounded out Day 1 by joining Darren, Ewan, Meaghan, along with Riley Sexton GM of RMM and Jose Serrano Senior Director of Engineering on stage for an Ask Me Anything session, safety in numbers, you never know what questions might be asked of you in these settings but I think between the panel we were able to address them all.

After a quick stop in the podcast studio to discuss the day’s events with Pete Roythorne and David Weeks, it was off to man the N‑central booth in the in Expo hall. Needless to say after the N‑central roadmap presentation, there were plenty of people dropping by to learn more about what’s to come. 

Day 2 – Wednesday

After an early night and a bright start, which included a park run for some, Day 2 kicked off with a keynote by Terance Mauri, founder of Hack Future Lab on the topic of Dare to Evolve. Our guest keynotes are always a highlight of any Empower and Terance did not disappoint, I left the session more enlightened with a fresh perspective on industry and how it will evolve moving forward.

Next up we had the MSP Horizons Report panel discussion. If you are not familiar with the Horizons Report or you haven’t checked out the 2025 edition, I strongly recommend you do so, you’ll find the complete report available here: https://www.n-able.com/resources/msp-horizons-report-2025

With so much to take in already on Day 2, a mid-morning coffee break gave us time to digest it all before Frank Colletti CRO at N‑able took to the stage to discuss The Health of Your Business. Frank’s call to action was to continue to engage with N‑able, whether that’s through attending our Business Transformation, Roadshows, or in-region Events or reaching out to your Customer Success Manager, Solutions Engineers or Head Nerds, you get more from N‑able if you engage with N‑able.

Empower is always evolving and this year we hosted or first Product Management/Engineering lunch, this gave those in attendance the opportunity to sit down with our product leaders to discuss all things N‑able. Those I spoke to found this hugely useful and I’m sure it will be a fixture of many Empowers to come.

After lunch, it was breakouts time again, I had the pleasure of hosting along with my fellow Head Nerd Joe Ferla a partner panel on AI & Automation, it was very interesting to hear how our customers are leveraging AI more and more to help with automation in their organisations. I also have to say I quite enjoyed asking the questions on a panel instead of answering for a change, although I don’t think I’ll be getting any offers to host my own chat show anytime soon.

I rounded out my breakout sessions by attending How Analytics Can Help your Business, hosted by Meaghan Reinecke and Jason Murphy, they were joined by Alan Richert of First Technology who gave us some examples on how they use Direct Data Access in Analytics to gain deeper visibility into their customers environments.

We rounded out the event with our annual awards before heading out for the Brew & Bytes closing party.

Looking ahead at what’s next for MSPs

Overall Empower Berlin was a huge success, and much to many of the teams surprise it ran without a hitch which is very uncommon for events of this scale, huge credit for that has to go to the N‑able Events team.  With Berlin in the review mirror the work has just begun, it’s now time to implement what we’ve all learned and taken away from Empower.

If you haven’t been to Empower before but reading this has piqued your interest or if you missed this one, fear not as we’ve already announced Empower 2026 and you can avail of early bird pricing by registering now, head over to: https://empower.n-able.com/event/960c7007-2985-4864-9069-25583e1a85b4/summary and hopefully I’ll see you in Ft. Lauderdale next year.

Paul Kelly is the Head Nerd for N‑central at N‑able. You can follow him on Twitter at @HeadNerdPaul, LinkedIn and Reddit at u/Paul _Kelly. Alternatively you can email me direct.