One of the energizing characteristics of the IT industry in general, and the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market in particular, is the continuous change. Part of the change process is the constant cycle of new companies entering the market and established companies disappearing.

Although many of these companies will come and go with little fanfare, occasionally the meaning of a promising young company that fails to succeed is worth extra consideration. Klir Technologies was such a company.

I was notified of the company’s closure by its CEO/Co-Founder, James Maiocco, at the time of its announcement on August 1, but have been unable to comment on this event until now because of other commitments.

Klir sought to solve companies’ IT performance management needs via a SaaS solution. While Klir had been in business since 2000, it started to attract serious attention in 2006 when it decided … Read More »

The acquisition hit parade in the IT management arena continues. On Friday, BMC purchased RealOps and on Monday HP acquired Opsware (and Neoware).

The similarilities between the two acquired companies is noteworthy, as is the opportunity for the acquirors to market their new assets to enterprises, as well as managed service providers (MSPs).

IT management has always been an issue of concern, but until recently it has never been a lucrative market for network and system management (NSM) platforms and tools. As IT becomes more pivotal to business operations and optimizing the performance of IT becomes more essential for business success, the importance of effective IT management has grown.

It has become increasingly apparent that enterprises, as well as MSPs, need as many tools as they can find to help them automate as much of the IT management function as possible. Market studies … Read More »

The findings of a 2006 survey recently released by Gartner has brought renewed attention to the fundamental shortcomings of today’s major network/system management (NSM) platforms from companies such as IBM, HP, CA and BMC.

The survey found that 40% gave their NSM vendors a mediocre “C” and nearly 30% of the respondents gave their vendors a “D” because of their frustrations with the costs and hassles involved in deploying and administering the vendors’ platforms.

These frustrations aren’t news. When I was the director of strategic marketing at International Network Services (INS), we were the first company to rollout a network performance management software service on a subscription pricing basis in response to these same frustrations. Our EnterprisePRO solution was unveiled in 1996, prior to the advent of the managed service provider (MSP) and application service provider (ASP) ideas.

Unfortunately, although there were plenty … Read More »