Spiceworks, the Texas-based web-2.0 platform for sysadmins, has announced that it has closed a $57 million round of funding - which it expects to be its last before an IPO. The funding is led by Goldman Sachs and brings the total amount raised by the company to $111 million. In exchange for the cash splash, Goldman Sachs gets …

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Tuesday 4th February 2014 10:13 GMT Khaptain

Purchasing - No thanks

Trevor,

I didn't fully understand from the article how exactly they will make money. Ok, there will be an app store but what will that AppStore sell that will interest the existing userbase - ( I already pay the vendors for their hardware, I don't want to have to pay them for their apps as well) and I can only hope and pray that it won't sell the SpiceWorks Core App....

SpiceWorks has been free for as long as I can remember and is indeed and excellent tool but should it become "Non-Free" ..........it will probably end up going down the same road as WinRar and Winzip.....

I must admit to not being to happy about this announcement but such is the way of all things Web.......

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1. Wednesday 5th February 2014 00:32 GMT Trevor_Pott
  
  Re: Purchasing - No thanks
  
  The core app will remain free, but they are opening the platform up for developers. Consider as one example Teamveiwer. Teamviewer makes great remote administration software. They could then sell their application through Spiceworks as a plugin, integrate with the platform so that as you are navigating through your inventory or responding to a ticket about a given PC you just click the button and Teamviewer will connect.
  
  This would allow you to connect without having to exchange TVID/password combos, going into the Teamviewer manager or carefully curating a list of PCs through the "computers and contacts" section. Teamviewer could even build the app such that when Spiceworks detects a new system on the network it automatically installs Teamviewer on the new system and adds the TVID/password combination to the Spiceworks system. I'd pay for that.
  
  Others are doing things like integrating their mobile device management software into Spiceworks. You get a set of features for free as part of the base Spiceworks app, but you pay the vendor to unlock the really sexy stuff if you want to go farther.
  
  Spiceworks will always be free. But now there is a path to integration for vendors looking to build on the platform and offer non-free management tools to systems administrators.
  
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Tuesday 4th February 2014 11:54 GMT John Smith 19

Smells like a Computer Associates takeover target to me

1)Buy company

2)Sack development staff

3)Fold it into their steaming pile of businesses

4)Introduce new ~~extortion~~ "licensing" model.

5)Profit*

*Allegedly this is their SOP.

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Tuesday 4th February 2014 12:11 GMT Anonymous Coward

Dell staff?

Why would Dell staff be encourage to apply? What do Dell make that overlaps with what Spiceworks do?

Did somebody explicitly ask the CEO about Dell layoffs, and catch him on the back foot, or did he just brain fart, in a "Look! I read about what's going on in tech!" kind of way.

DELL! DELL LAYOFFS! ERR ... COME AND WORK FOR US!

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1. Tuesday 4th February 2014 13:23 GMT John Smith 19
  
  Re: Dell staff?
  
  "DELL! DELL LAYOFFS! ERR ... COME AND WORK FOR US!"
  
  Boris Johnson is their (part time) CEO as well?
  
  Who knew?
  
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2. Wednesday 5th February 2014 00:33 GMT Trevor_Pott
  
  Re: Dell staff?
  
  I explicitly asked him about the Dell layoffs. Dell have many good developers, sales staff and marketing folk. The cream of that crop could find a home at Spiceworks.
  
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