Spiceworks

Infobox Company
company_name = Spiceworks Inc.
company_
company_type = Private
foundation = 2006
location = Austin, Texas, US
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industry = Computer software
products = Spiceworks IT Desktop
revenue =
operating_income =
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homepage = [http://www.spiceworks.com/ Official website]
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Spiceworks provides a free systems management, inventory, and helpdesk software application, Spiceworks IT Desktop, designed for network administrators working in small- to medium-sized businesses.

Spiceworks is a privately held company headquartered in Austin, Texas with an initial round of $5M funding [ [http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2006/06/12/daily34.html Spiceworks uses $5M to boost sales, marketing - Austin Business Journal: ] ] from Austin Ventures. [ [http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2006/06/12/daily34.html Spiceworks uses $5M to boost sales, marketing - Austin Business Journal: ] ] Spiceworks was formed in early 2006, [ [http://www.spiceworks.com/about/ Spiceworks - The First Ad-Supported Business Application ] ] by Scott Abel, Jay Hallberg, Greg Kattawar, and Francis Sullivan. The co-founders of Spiceworks have backgrounds with Motive Inc, Tivoli Software, Apple, and NeXT. Spiceworks IT Desktop is used to inventory, monitor, manage and report on software and hardware assets. It also includes an integrated help desk system. Spiceworks runs on Microsoft Windows and discovers Windows, Unix, Linux and Mac OS X machines along with other IP-addressable devices such as routers, VOIP phones, printers, etc. Spiceworks is an advertisement-supported application [ [http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117496231973149939-05bQvBXmI0tpwoBlv0d98dW4r70_20080325.html Companies Tolerate Ads to Get Free Software - WSJ.com ] ] and is written in Ruby on Rails.

Community

Spiceworks offers an online forum, called the Spiceworks Community, from which Spiceworks IT Desktop users can obtain technical support and make Feature Requests to be implemented in future versions of the software.

Originally, the Spiceworks Community had the option to add "Spiciness" or "Spicy Votes" to each thread within the Spiceworks Community, specifically Feature Requests. The spiciness of a given thread would allow Spiceworks Inc. a better view as to what their current users wanted out of the application. This "Spiciness" was represented by a red Chili pepper. As the Spiceworks Community grew, several updates took place, one of which was the removal of the chilis. Later versions of the Spiceworks Community used generic plus and minus signs to show the "spiciness" of a thread, although this caused new Feature Requests by the Spiceworks Community for the resurgence of the chilis. As of September 12th, 2007, Spiceworks has reincorporated the Chili pepper icon. [ [http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2998 Spiceworks - CHILI PEPPERS ] ] .

Versions

* Beta - Released July 24th 2006 was the first public release of the Spiceworks software
* 1.0 - Released Oct 2006 was the first release
* 1.1 - Released 2007 introduced custom attributes, an improved system tray, support for gmail
* 1.5 - Introduced multi-user accounts helpdesk portal, email trouble ticket submissions
* 1.6 - Introduced remote desktop capability with RDP and VNC, "MySpiceworks" dashboard, expanded support for collecting the status of anti-virus packages
* 1.7 - Introduced support for collecting product keys, product ratings
* 2.0 - Released Dec 2007. Faster scanning (2-8x faster). Windows Event Log monitoring. "Spicemeter" usage optimizer. Improved troubleshooting features. Lots of bug fixes. [ [http://www.spiceworks.com/2.0/ Spiceworks v2.0: Performance Improvements, Windows Event Logs, Product Ratings & More ] ]
* 2.1 - Released Feb 2008. Includes over 60 bug fixes, Event log monitors, Troubleshooting tools in the helpdesk.
* 3.0 - Released June 19, 2008. Faster scanning (20-40% faster). faster interface (30-40% faster). Monitor Microsoft Exchange server, Active Directory. Track IT Services. [ [http://www.spiceworks.com/3.0/ Spiceworks v3.0] ]
* 3.1 - Released Aug 22, 2008. Bug fixes and scan improvements.

Features

Here is a feature list taken from a reviewer: [ [http://bossmanthe.blogspot.com/2007/10/free-network-and-workstation-auditing.html AnyArbStuff ] ]

* Scan SNMP Devices
* Linux Scanning via an SSH login
* Alerts on customizable definitions (eg machines with no anti-virus or low printer toner)
* Ability to manage your software licenses
* Software automatically categorizes machines into groups. eg Laptops, servers, routers etc
* Ability to define custom devices
* Ability to compare one machine with another

References

External links

* http://www.spiceworks.com/