London, England – February 9th, 2010 – Spiceworks™, Inc., provider of the first and only social IT management application connecting the world’s IT professionals and top technology companies, today announced details of its ongoing expansion efforts in Europe.
Most recently the company appointed Jan Hantke to lead its European operations. Formerly an advertising manager with VNU and then IDG, Hantke heads a dedicated team of country managers looking after the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the Nordics.
“While IT professionals face similar challenges across the world, there are different cultures and preferences we consider when fostering a community and provide sponsorship and advertising opportunities in the region,” said Jan Hantke.
With more than 850,000 users in 196 countries, Spiceworks is the most widely deployed and fastest growing IT management application in the world. There are currently over 200,000 IT professionals and 20,000 Managed Service Providers using Spiceworks across the European Union (EU). Together, Spiceworks users around the world support 29 million employees, manage 47 million computers and devices, and spend $145 billion annually on technology products and services.
Spiceworks has been translated into 14 European languages through the efforts of Spiceworks users. As part of its increased emphasis on Europe, this year Spiceworks will exhibit at CeBIT in Germany and host four Spiceworks training “Boot Camps” across the region.
“Europe continues to be an important growing market for the Spiceworks IT Desktop and community,” said Jay Hallberg, co-founder and CMO of Spiceworks. “By boosting our local presence we hope to better serve the unique needs of IT professionals in different countries in the region.”
In Europe Spiceworks has run a number of successful campaigns for top technology companies, including Sun, HP and Dell. A recent Spiceworks campaign for Oracle, which targeted the UK, Germany, France, Poland and Turkey, used individually created messages, images and supporting collateral translated in five languages to deliver significant leads.
In January 2010, Spiceworks secured a $16 million Series C funding round led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). The round included participation from existing Spiceworks investors Austin Ventures and Shasta Ventures. A later-stage investor in rapidly-growing media and technology companies, IVP has funded many successful ventures, such as Twitter, MySQL, HomeAway, Netflix, Business.com, Zynga and more.
Spiceworks is enabling ‘Social IT’ by combining systems and network management software with a rapidly growing and active Facebook-like community of IT professionals. Organizations of all sizes use the software and integrated online community to collaborate with each other and support the management of their IT networks and services.
With more than 850,000 users in 196 countries, and over 1,000 new IT pros joining every day, Spiceworks is the most widely deployed and fastest growing IT management application in the world. Currently more than 25 percent of all businesses with greater than 100 employees rely on Spiceworks to manage their IT operations. Together the Spiceworks user community supports 29 million employees, manages 47 million computers and devices, and spends $145 billion annually on technology products and services.