SpiceWorks 5.0 on the "Dashboard" screen. |
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| Developer(s) | SpiceWorks, Inc. |
| Stable release | 5.3 (Build 5.3.7588.4) (December 15, 2011) [±] |
| Website | Spiceworks Homepage |
Spiceworks is a software development company headquartered in Austin, Texas. It was formed in early 2006 by Scott Abel, Jay Hallberg, Greg Kattawar, and Francis Sullivan to provide a Facebook-like community integrated with a free ad-supported[1] IT systems management,[2] inventory, and help desk software application designed for network administrators working in small- to mid-sized businesses and managing up to 1,000 network devices. It was funded with an initial round of $5M[3] from Austin Ventures.
Spiceworks received an $8M Series B funding round[4] from Shasta Ventures and Austin Ventures in August 2007. The company’s third round of funding was secured in January 2010 in the amount of $16 million Series C funding[5] led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP).
On April 28, 2011, Spiceworks closed $25 million in Series D funding from Adams Street Partners and Tenaya Capital. The funding will support expansion of the Spiceworks business model to include integrated commerce within the Spiceworks social business network for IT professionals and technology vendors.[6]
Spiceworks is written in Ruby on Rails, and runs on Microsoft Windows. The software discovers Windows, Unix, Linux and Mac OS X machines along with other IP-addressable devices such as routers, VOIP phones, printers, etc.[7]
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Spiceworks was formed in January 2006 in Austin, Texas to develop the network administration tools.[8] The co-founders of Spiceworks have backgrounds with Motive Inc, Tivoli Software, Apple, and NeXT.[9]
Development began on a network inventory and help desk software application and online community to better assist IT managers with performing their daily tasks. The online community is a place where they can read and participate in forums discussing various IT topics, post questions, get answers, and network with other IT professionals and technology vendors.
The co-founders settled on a Google business model that would allow the software to remain free by featuring advertisements from companies offering small-to-medium business technology products and services directly within the application and community. Spiceworks Beta went live in July 2006[10] and originally hoped to sign 3,000 customers over the coming 12 months. By the end of its first year, it had 32,000 users in 60 countries.[11]
Since 2008, Spiceworks has hosted their annual user conference, "SpiceWorld," in Austin every October. From 2008-2010, the event was hosted at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in downtown Austin. For the 4th annual SpiceWorld in 2011, Spiceworks moved the conference to the AT&T Executive Education & Conference Center on the University of Texas campus.