By Mike Manfredi

Ipswitch, Inc. hasn’t forgotten its humble beginnings. In fact, we’re proud of our past.

Roger Greene founded Ipswitch, Inc. in 1991.  We started off small, but thanks to his vision and business savvy and the support of our customers, it’s been nearly twenty years and we’re still private and profitable!

Starting a small business takes moxie. As passionate people ourselves we appreciate that trait in anyone.

It’s for that reason we’re proud to announce that Ipswitch Network Management will donate $1 for every download of its WhatsUp Gold software to Accion USA through May 31^st. 2010.

Accion USA, a leader in U.S. microfinance, provides affordable small business loans to microentrepreneurs.

If you’ve been putting off giving WhatsUp Gold a try, Stop and download today. Not only will you make your life easier, you’ll be making the life of a small business owner somewhere in the U.S. easier too!

Popularity: 34% [?]

By Mike Manfredi

Software should make your life simpler.

That’s been the mantra of our WhatsUp Gold developers from year one, nearly 20 years ago.Today, this dilegence and commitment to our customers was vindicated by NetworkManagementSoftware scribe, Aaron Leskiw.

Leskiw conducted an in-depth review of WhatsUp Gold Premium, focusing on the usability and simplicity of the product in relation to the robust feature set that it delivers.

Leskiw’s bottom line on the review of WhatsUp Gold Premium Edition was: “The big question is: Does WhatsUp Gold deliver on its promise of making your job easier? Yes it does – and very well! All of the features tested performed superbly and the software was simple to install.

Share in our success (afterall, it’s with your feedback that we’ve successfully developed our user-friendly IT Managemetn solution!) and check out the full review here: http://www.networkmanagementsoftware.com/whatsup-gold-premium-review

Check out the full review here: http://www.networkmanagementsoftware.com/whatsup-gold-premium-review

A recent review of WhatsUp Gold Premium Edition from Aaron Leskiw on networkmanagementsoftware.com poses the question: Does network management have to be complicated?

Obviously, we think it should be just the opposite, and build our network management solutions with the goal of making the life of a network administrator that much easier. Leskiw conducted a pretty in-depth review of WhatsUp Gold Premium, focusing on the usability and simplicity of the product in relation to the robust feature set that it delivers.

The bottom line on the review of WhatsUp Gold Premium Edition? Well Leskiw had this to say: “The big question is: Does WhatsUp Gold deliver on its promise of making your job easier? Yes it does – and very well! All of the features tested performed superbly and the software was simple to install.

Check out the full review here: http://www.networkmanagementsoftware.com/whatsup-gold-premium-review

Popularity: 31% [?]

By kmyers

In early March, Alessandro Porro, our International Sales Director, traveled throughout Asia to visit some of our WhatsUp Gold partners.  The first two stops of this tour were Japan and Korea, where Alessandro met with Vinetech.  Next, he visited our partner ZeroOne Technology in both China and Taiwan.  ZeroOne Technology, recently named “Distributor of the Year” in Taiwan, hosted a reseller event in both China and Taiwan.  Alessandro was able to share the product management strategy, roadmap, and provide details on our exciting upcoming releases with resellers in these regions. Finally, Alessandro wrapped up his travels in Hong Kong with a visit to Asiasoft.  Also while in Hong Kong, Alessandro met with representatives from AsiaVAD (from Singapore) to discuss current business.  We are so fortunate to have dedicated partners who are committed to making our APAC visit successful!

This trip was a great opportunity to visit our partners at their offices.  It is always exciting to visit with partners and hear from their customers; it helps achieve our mutual success. This was a great trip and we look forward to future visits!

Popularity: 33% [?]

By Ennio Carboni

As President of Ipswitch Inc.’s Network Management division I have had the opportunity to speak with many of our customers about their experience using WhatsUp Gold.

Now, because WhatsUp Gold can be deployed and utilized in a variety of ways, each new story I hear varies from the last. But I have noticed a few common themes over the years. One such theme sounds like this:

“The phones stopped ringing as soon as it was deployed on the network.”

In fact, a few weeks ago I had a new customer call up our sales team and rave about the silence he and his team have enjoyed since they implemented WhatsUp Gold on their network. No more phone calls about the network being slow, that this server is down, that the Internet isn’t connecting, etc.

Because of the powerful systems and performance monitoring WhatsUp Gold delivers, these guys are finally the first to know when something is wrong on their network. They can now fix an issue before it affects their users.

This latest customer interaction reminded me of our history with job-search-giant, CareerBuilder. As a longtime user of WhatsUp Gold solutions, our product has literally grown along with CareerBuilder’s company.

In its early stages in 2003, at a point when the job search site was just one-fifth the size of the market leader, they brought in WhatsGold to solve their basic monitoring needs. As they’ve grown and matured, becoming the nation’s largest online job site, WhatsUp Gold has stayed a step ahead to continue to provide them the tool-set and functionality they need to manage a network that now includes close to 1300 devices.

Despite the evolution of technology and the increasing complexity of networks and managing solutions, we know that with most of our customers it is still the little things that make such a big difference. Mark Fouraker, Technologist at CareerBuilder, touches on just that in a favorite quote of mine from this customer story:

“My favorite story about WhatsUp Gold is when I was in an important meeting and was getting silent alerts on my pager about an impending issue on our network. I was sneaking out at breaks to troubleshoot and address the matter, eventually resolving it. The bottom line is that no one outside of a few people in operations had any idea there was even an issue at all. It’s just a beautiful product.”

A story like this is really powerful, in my opinion, because it shows how technology can evolve and customer needs can change, forcing us to continually adapt and innovate our product to meet those changing needs. It also shows that business relationships can certainly last as long as it remains mutually beneficial, with a bit of give and take from both sides.

Popularity: 50% [?]

By WUG Team

I had a few free hours yesterday afternoon inbetween Sunday obligations so I did what many people do when blessed with extra time; I powered on my gaming console and sank into my couch for a quick game or two.

I’ve been trying to wean myself from my “Little Big Planet” so I thought I’d download “Heavy Rain,” just to see what all the hype was about.

Unfortunately for me my gaming console of choice is PlayStation 3. (Don’t think I don’t hear you Xbox fanatics chuckling to yourselves that owning a PS3 is indeed unfortunate, but let’s save that argument for another post.)

Instead of “Heavy Rain,” I received this message:

8001050F Registration of the trophy information could not be completed. The game will now quit.

I tried three more times before I broke out my computer and did a quick Google search to see what the heck was going on. It didn’t take long for me to find other users experiencing the same frustration.

It was official; the PlayStation Network was down.  Bummer.

And the outage seemed to be only effecting the older versions of PS3. Meaning Double Bummer for me. I don’t yet own one those new “slim” PS3 models.

Sony acknowledged the technical issue on their blog Sunday night and said it was working on a fix.

“We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, and genuinely appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this,” Sony social media manager Jeff Rubenstein posted on the PlayStation blog.

I wondered what, if anything, they use to monitor their network. I wondered if they had deployed WhatsUp Gold on the PS3 network whether or not I’d be sitting on my couch wondering what to do now.

I can’t help it. It’s the first thing I think about in these situations. I thought about the flood of phone calls those in charge of PSN must be drowning in at that moment.

In this world where nearly everything happens online Network management software is no longer a Nice to Have. It is definitely a Need to Have.

If PSN does not have a Network Management solution in place I’m willing to bet they will have one in the very near future.

In the meantime they’ve released that the source of the problem has been indentified as a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system. Sony says it hopes to resolve the issue in the next 24 hours.

If you, like me, own an older PS3, Sony advises we keep our consoles turned off until further notice.

Popularity: 44% [?]

By WUG Team

Is That Barbie in the Server Room?

It’s official folks. Being a geek is, without a doubt, chic. Even Barbie’s doing it!

Mattel announced last week that Barbie’s 125th career would be that of a computer engineer. Girl’s come a long way since her days as a secretary hasn’t she?

Barbie’s latest foray into the working world was determined by an online vote – Mattel’s first. A profession in high tech beat out equally progessive occupations such as Architect, Environmentalist, news anchor and surgeon.

Imagine that. After all the years tech enthusiasts have logged being pegged as “computer nerds” and a busty blonde plastic mold comes along and makes it trendy.

I wonder if her “Interests” would include long walks in the server room and magic gatherings. But I digress . . .

Popularity: 43% [?]