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Spiceworks

Spiceworks, An Online Networking Platform For IT Professionals.

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Spiceworks was established in 2006 with the goal of making IT workdays simpler. The business operates a global IT platform that links millions of buyers and sellers of technology so they can accomplish their daily tasks. It assists tech companies in creating, promoting, and supporting better services and products while also assisting tech workers in locating, using, and managing the most recent technologies.

About The Company

Spiceworks is a professional networking platform for the information technology sector. Jay Hallberg, In 2006, Scott Abel, Francis Sullivan, and Greg Kattawar, established the company intending to create IT management software. Spiceworks is an online platform where users can communicate and share advice while also shopping for IT-related services and goods in a marketplace. Over six million IT experts and 3,000 technology providers use this network. The company only supports Microsoft Windows in its free proprietary software, which is coded in Ruby on Rails. The software finds IP-addressable devices and has integrated knowledge bases and help desk features. Users can access Spiceworks’ professional software and network for free. The majority of the company’s revenue comes from the sale of the advertisements that are seen on its network. A tiny portion of its income comes from sales of IT goods and services made via the Spiceworks portal.

Spiceworks
Image source: app.jobvite.com

History

In 2006, former Motive executives Jay Hallberg, Scott Abel, Greg Kattawar, and Francis Sullivan founded Spiceworks. The group had first come together in 2005 with the goal of developing a social approach to IT. In 2019, Ziff Davis closed the takeover of Austin, Texas-based Spiceworks. They teamed up to combine Spiceworks’ community and product experience and knowledge with Ziff Davis B2B’s rich content, information, and performance marketing skills. As a result, new insights for technology professionals improved intent-driven market, account intelligence for technology brands, and new experiences that connect both parties at crucial times will be produced. In 2006, it launched a public beta. Four months later, Spiceworks’ 1.0 release was made public. It concentrated on streamlining the procedure for inventory collecting, network monitoring, and report generation for IT experts at small and midsize businesses. In 2007, the company introduced the 2.0 edition of its software. Subsequent versions came after, and version 7.0 was released in 2013. In 2014, the company launched a free network management product. In 2021, Spiceworks Desktop 7.5 stopped being accessible for download and was discontinued later. The company introduced a Cloud Help Desk service. It inaugurated its European main office in London, England, in 2012.

Controversy

In 2016, the company marked its tenth anniversary, and it also made intentions to hire an additional 100 people this year. However, those intentions were altered, and the company declared that it was dismissing roughly 12% of its workers. Additionally, a number of Spiceworks executives left the company to work with former CEO Scott Abel on the founding of a new startup called Resly Labs. Later, Resly Labs changed its name to Umuse.

Events

Since 2008, Spiceworks has held SpiceWorld, an annual user conference in Austin. Spiceworks established a London branch in 2012 in response to the expanding global community. In 2012, Vinopolis in London’s Bankside played host to the inaugural SpiceWorld London event. To combat the pandemic threat, Spiceworld held its inaugural conference in a virtual mode in the years 2020 and 2021.

Founders – Jay Hallberg, Greg Kattawar, Francis Sullivan, Scott Abel

In 2005, former IT professionals Jay Hallberg, Scott Abel, Greg Kattawar, and Francis Sullivan started talking about how they could create an online social networking site for IT experts where users might assist one another in resolving typical technological issues. This idea resulted in the foundation of Spiceworks in 2006.

Neustar

Neustar – Providing Real-Time Data And Analytics Services.

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A forerunner in identity resolution, Neustar provides the information and technology necessary to establish reliable connections between businesses and individuals at crucial times. The company provides Industry-leading services in Marketing, Risk, Communications, and Security that connect information about people, devices, and places in a responsible manner. The company serves around 60 of the Fortune 100 companies globally.

About The Company

American technology business Neustar offers real-time data and analytics for the security, digital efficiency, defense, telecoms, entertainment, and marketing sectors. It also offers directory and clearinghouse services to the international communications and Internet sectors. TIll 2018 Neustar also served as the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANP) for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the USA. Their initial agreement was made in 1997, and it was extended through its spinoff in 1999, 2004, and 2012. Somos, Inc. has taken its place as of 2019.

Neustar
Image source: securecdn.pymnts.com

History

In 1998, Neustar was established in Delaware as a division of Lockheed Martin Corporation. It was spun out in order to maintain the neutrality required by its original founding contract with the country’s telecom operators. In 2006, it acquired Followap, a UK-based provider of instant phone texting services. Lisa Hook was appointed the company’s CEO and President in 2010. According to a January 2010 article in The Washington Post, Neustar was picked by a group of tech executives and Hollywood studios to run a system that would allow customers to watch films and other video media from a variety of digital devices. “UltraViolet” was the name of this system. With regard to their caller identification assets, Neustar and Transaction Network Services agreed to an asset acquisition agreement in 2015. Neustar intended to divide itself into two separate, publicly traded businesses the following year. Later that year, Golden Gate Capital and GIC declared that they would acquire all of Neustar’s publicly traded shares for about $2.9 billion. The deal was completed by the end of August 2017. In 2016 Neustar lost e its NPAC contract to Telcordia, a subsidiary of Ericsson. Since 1997, Neustar had managed the number portability system. In 2018, Neustar acquired Verisign’s security services client deals. Later, Neustar acquired TRUSTID, a company that offers contact centers caller verification, and fraud prevention services. In 2020, GoDaddy acquired Neustar’s domain name registration company, which was later rebranded as GoDaddy Registry. In 2021, TransUnion paid $3.1 billion to acquire Neustar’s core business. However, GIC and Golden Gate Capital continued to own Neustar Security Services as a portfolio company, excluding it from the transaction.

Business

Neustar’s primary business from 1998 to 2015 was the management of the NANP, which includes the upkeep of the databases and system of directories that control the phone zip codes and centralized codes in North America. This makes it possible for calls to be routed among thousands of different communication service providers. Additionally, Neustar offered clearinghouse services to new CSPs, such as VoIP service providers, mobile operators, cable television providers, and Internet service providers (ISPs). A number of top-level domains, such as.biz,.us (on behalf of the US Department of Commerce),.co,.NYC (on behalf of NY City), and .in (on behalf of the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI)), are managed by Neustar.

Founder – Jeffrey Ganek

Between 1995 to 2010, Jeffrey Ganek served as Neustar’s founder, chairman, and CEO. In 1999, Ganek oversaw a management buy-out of Neustar, which he had established as a separate division within Lockheed Martin.

CEO – Charles E. Gottdiener

Charles Gottdiener is the CEO of Neustar since 2018. Gottdiener previously worked as an MD at Providence Equity Partners, where he held the positions of Head of Portfolio Operations and COO. A number of Providence portfolio firms, like Blackboard, VRAD, SRA International, and Ascend Learning, had him on their boards or as their interim CEO.

Larsen & Toubro

Larsen & Toubro, Started With Dairy Equipment To Leading Indian Multinational Corporation.

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Founded in 1946, Larsen & Toubro is a market leader in almost every industry. The conglomerate has achieved and maintained leadership in its primary business sectors for more than eight decades due to a robust, customer-focused strategy and a never-ending pursuit of world-class quality.

About the Company

Larsen & Toubro, also known as L&T, is a leading Indian multinational corporation with business operations in various industries like construction, engineering, technology, manufacturing, financial services, and information technology. L&T is ranked among the top five construction firms worldwide. The company is headquartered in Mumbai, India. L&T Group consists of 118 subsidiaries, 25 joint ventures, six associates, and 35 joint operations corporations. The company is listed on the NSE and BSE. In 2022, it had a revenue of over $20 billion. It serves clients from various industries in more than 50 countries.

History

In 1938, Henning Larsen and Soren Toubro, two Danish engineers, formed a company in Bombay. The company started as a business that imported and sold Danish dairy equipment. Unfortunately, import limitations that came into effect after Germany invaded Denmark in 1940 severely hurt the company’s business. Despite their difficulties, the pair decided to stay in India and establish a local workshop to provide services and technical work. During World War II, they discovered a profitable commercial opportunity to construct and repair ships. As a result, Larsen & Toubro was founded. In 1940, the company received its first significant order to build a soda ash facility/plant for the Tata Group. The calibre of service and prompt service of L&T delighted numerous national and international businesses. They started working with lots of foreign players. Gradually, L&T also became a representative of various British equipment manufacturers for producing soaps, glass, hydrogenated oils, etc. In 1945, the company made a deal with the US-based Caterpillar Tractor to market earth-moving machinery.

In 1946, L&T was incorporated, and it established offices in Madras, Calcutta, and New Delhi. In 1950, it went public and became a listed company. The company was selected as a contractor for constructing nuclear reactors in 1965. L&T was invited by Dr. Homi Bhabha, the Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) chairman at the time, to provide vital parts for atomic reactors in the 1950s. L&T began to obtain major projects from the ISRO in the 1970s and 1980s. In order to design weapon and missile systems, it also collaborated with DRDO.

Larsen & Toubro
Image source: moneycontrol.com

Operations

L&T is also a top supplier of design-to-delivery services for India’s defence industry. It builds underground facilities, military installations, and storage facilities. Additionally, L&T provides a selection of defence-related vessels, such as warships, submarines, support vessels, and unique naval platforms. An important participant in India’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiatives is L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Ltd. It has finished significant projects in several important industries, including renewable energy, transmission and distribution lines, ports, water supply, etc. The world’s largest metro project under PPP form is the L&T Metro Rail in Hyderabad. It extends over three corridors for 69.2 kilometers.

Founders – Henning Holck-Larsen, Søren Kristian Toubro

Henning Holck-Larsen and Soren Kristian Toubro, two Danish engineers, established L&T in Bombay in 1938. They were equally dedicated to enhancing India’s engineering capacity to fulfill market demands. Danish classmates Henning Larsen and Soren Toubro, who were studying India in history classes, perhaps never imagined that they would one day write the history of that auspicious country. The two companions made the decision to leave the conveniences of living in Europe in 1938 and launch their own business in India instead.

CEO – S N Subrahmanyan

S N Subrahmanyan is the CEO and Managing Director of Larsen & Toubro. He has been serving as the company’s CEO since 2017. In 1984, he started working with Larsen & Toubro’s ECC Division. He has an MBA from Symbiosis, Pune and also attended London Business School.

Bechtle

Bechtle – A German-based IT Company That Took A Spark In The Campus Of Heilbronn University.

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Bechtle AG is a multinational company with its headquarters based in Neckarsulm, Germany. The company mainly offers IT services in direct link with the sale of hardware and software IT products. Bechtle has a diversified client base, hence it is also responsible for the operation and maintenance of various IT infrastructures including the public sector. Founded in 1983, currently it has a massive business spread globally with 80 system houses. It has established e-commerce companies in fourteen European countries and nearly 70 different locations in german-speaking regions. The main business factor that makes a company adaptable for every type/size of business is its blend of IT product sales with integrations services. 

Founding Bechtle

The idea of founding Bechtle took a spark in the campus of Heilbronn University with Klaus von Jan, Ralf Klenk and Gerhard Schick. These members of the university founded Bechtle GmbH EDV-Technik on 21st July 1983 as a microbusiness. They started the company from inside the campus and initially focused on programming technical calculation software for commercial purposes. In the first fiscal year, the company earned 66,000 German marks. After a couple of years, Bechtle became a certified IBM distributor and the team shifted to a bigger office. With six people running the company, the annual revenue climbed up to 2,245,000 German marks by the end of 1985. 

Bechtle
Image Source: www.shopstrategen.de

Expansion

By the end of the 1980s, Bechtle already established itself as a market leader. IBM recognized the company as Quality Dealer of the Year three times in a row and it also expanded the team and became a company with a total of 37 employees. By the end of 1989, the revenue of the company became 13,015,000 German marks. With the advent of a new decade, the company focused on campaigning and branding as it was crossing regional borders. In 1992, Bechtle became one of Southern Germany’s largest system integrators. The number of employees became 85. One of the turning points in the history of the company’s growth was in 1993 as two of its main competitors were bankrupt. Bechtle seized this opportunity to expand in more locations and also hired executive members from prominent IT companies. 

Two years down the line, Bechtle focused on taking the company online and launched its website. In the same year, Amazon and eBay were also founded in the US. After launching the company in the e-commerce market, it soon became a pioneer and also started making acquisitions. It expanded to a few locations like northern Baden-Württemberg and Leipzig and the outcome was a three-fold increase in the annual revenue. From 1995 to 1996, the company doubled its employees. In the same year, Bechtle was recognized as one of the top five IT system houses in Germany. Also, in the same year, Bechtle first opened an international office in Switzerland. 

Present Days

In 2000, the company went for an IPO and the capital from the shares was used to expand in France and Belgium. In 2004, the company reached a new milestone of surpassing the 1 billion euros revenue mark. The company moved to its new headquarters in Neckarsulm. In 2004, it made four new acquisitions to add more locations to the company’s list. In 2008, Bechtle celebrated its 25th anniversary, and the business expanded to Ireland and Austria. The international expansion continued as it opened the business in Portugal, Poland, Hungary, and several other countries. In 2014, Bechtle became the top IT system house in Germany. Bechtle currently has more than 12,000 employees and it is impressively growing in terms of revenue even in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. 

Thomas Olemotz – CEO of Bechtle

Thomas Olemotz is currently the CEO of Bechtle and has worked with 11 different companies. Some of the companies where Olemotz worked before joining Bechtle are Deutsche Gesellschaft für Mittelstandsberatung, Delton AG, and Microlog Logistics AG. He joined the company in 2007 and became the CEO of the company in 2010. He also played his role as Spokesman of the Executive Board and CFO at Bechtle. 

Life360

Life360 – A Family Networking App That Received Funding From Both Google And Facebook.

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Life360 is a social family networking app that was initially released in the market in 2008. Chris Hulls is the founder of the company and it’s currently based in San Francisco, US. Life360 is a publicly-traded information technology company that is operated by consumers across the world except in China. The application offers location-based services, alarming with notifications, sharing location, etc. The idea behind Life360 was to design software that would virtually keep a family together and safe. The Life360 app is available for both Android and iOS users.

About Life360 app

The Life360 app has got several features to always get a real-time update on your friends and family members. There are alerts when your family is entering or leaving any specific places or even when they are driving or just walking. One will also receive a notification after the completion of every drive and get to know if they are running low on battery. One of the features called the Driver Protect offers crash detection, roadside assistance, and updated weekly driver reports. The app is designed in a way that it can automatically detect an accident and dispatches emergency services if needed. This feature can also connect the drivers to trained advisors that can assist during minor accidents.

There are two other important features offered by Life360, namely, Check-In and Help Alert. It is a bit worrisome for parents to let their kids or senior citizens travel alone. So, the Check-In feature helps in getting quick updates for when they are traveling, leaving a place, or arriving. The Help Alert button sends an alert to all the emergency contacts and in the Life360 circle with a click of a single button. It also shows the other users when that button was pressed.

Life360
Image source: www.techjunkie.com

Initial Days

Chris Hulls had the idea for Life360 when he was an undergrad student. The initial prototype was launched in the Android marketplace in 2008. Chris received initial funding for Life360 from both Facebook and Google. Life360 participated and won Google’s Android Developer Challenge in 2008 and received $275,000 as of the grant money. This was a huge amount and got the company started in the early stage. After the company started growing it received the funds of $5.5 million, $17 million, and $50 million in Series A, Series B, and Series C funding respectively.

In 2013, Life360 entered into a partnership with BMW such that the location services of the company would be integrated into the navigation system of BMW cars. In this same year, the company also crossed more than 34 million, outrunning Foursquare. By the end of 2013, Life360 had over 40 million registered users. Another reason that Life360 witnessed a growth in the number of users was Google decided to discontinue its platform, Google Latitude in August 2013. Eventually, the company also added more languages to the app other than English and added international SMS.

Recent Events

With every year, the company kept on adding more and more features to the app making it helpful in every way. In 2016, Life360 launched the feature of automatic car crash detection and contacting the people on the emergency list. Life360 started a joint venture with ADT Go and the news was announced by ADT at the CES 2018. ADT has a very expansive security infrastructure to connect and protect its customers outside the home.

Life360 became a public company in 2019 as it was listed in the Australian Securities Exchange and the fund raised was invested to expand globally and partner with various insurance companies. Life360 has recently acquired two new companies. They are a guide app called ZenScreen and an American electronics company, Tile.

Chris Hulls – Founder of Life360

Chris Hulls is a travel enthusiast and a tech entrepreneur. He served in the military after passing high school and was deployed to the Middle East. As an undergrad student at the University of California Berkely, he got an internship with Goldman Sachs. He always wanted to go to the South Pole but in a medical test, he got to know that he has a tumor and life took a different turn.

Rockwell Automation

Rockwell Automation – A Famous Fortune 500 Company That Expanded During World War I.

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Rockwell Automation is an American company that was founded in 1903. The company is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and it is also a Fortune 500 company. It is a publicly-traded company that specializes in industrial automation and information technology. The founding story of the company dates back to the early 1900s and the formation of the Compression Rheostat Company. The founders of Rockwell Automation are Lynde Bradley and Dr. Stanton Allen. Rockwell Automation is operational in more than 100 countries and employs 23,000 people globally. In 2019, the annual global sales of the company reached $6.69 billion.

Founding Story Of Rockwell Automation

Lynde Bradley and Dr. Stanton Allen started the company with an initial investment of $1000 in 1903. After a year, the brother of Lynde Bradley, Harry Bradley joined the company. The same year, the company launched its first product which was a carbon disc compression-type motor controller. This crane controller was first demonstrated at the St. Louis World’s Fair. In 1909, the founders decided to rename the company to Allen-Bradley Company and the company started expanding rapidly during World War I. The company took up contract work from the government and some of the new products included automatic starters, circuit breakers, relays, and many other electric types of equipment.

After serving for years in collaboration with the government, it opened its first sales office in New York in 1914. After a couple of years, the company witnessed the unfortunate death of Stanton Allen. After this incident, Lynde Bradley became the President and Harry Bradley became the Vice President. The company made a progressive achievement in 1918 as it hired its first female worker, Julia Polczynski. During the 1920s, the company expanded its radio business and by the end of the decade reached a total sales of $3 million. The company suffered losses during the Great Depression and made lay-offs and reduced wages but eventually started offering stocks to compensate for the wages and it gave fruitful results.

Rockwell Automation
image source: cxoworldwide.com

During The 20th Century

During the 1900s, Lynde Bradley hugely invested in R&D so that the company can revolver the losses during the depression period. In 1942, Harry Bradley became the new President of the company as Lynde passed away and with his assets, The Lynde Bradley Foundation was established. Soon the company was again invested in producing wartime machinery during World War II. The rate of production was again escalated to unexpected levels as the company produced different types of electrical components and military equipment. To meet the production needs during the war, the plant facilities were expanded in a two-year expansion project.

The company eventually came under a new leadership team during the 1970s (Harry Bradley passed away in 1965) and entered the global market. In the early 1980s, the company introduced a new product line of programmable logic controllers. Allen-Bradley reached the $1 billion sales mark in 1985 and the same year Rockwell International decided to purchase the company for $1.65 billion. After this massive merger in the history of Wisconsin, the new business arm of the merged company was formed including Rockwell Software in 1994 and the Logix control platform in 1997. During this decade, the company also acquired several businesses including a power system business composed of Reliance Electric and Dodge.

Present Days

In 2001, Rockwell International was divided into companies namely, Rockwell Automation and Rockwell Collins. New executive members were brought on board and the company sold its Power Systems division to Baldor Electric Company for $1.8 billion. In 2007, the company acquired ICS Triplex, and recently it has acquired two new companies, Avnet Data Security and Kalypso L.P. In 2019, the company also launched its Digital Partner Program to contribute more significantly towards digital transformation.

Blake Moret – CEO And Chairman Of Rockwell Automation

Blake Moret joined Rockwell Automation in 1985 as a sales trainee. He has served in several leadership positions in the company since then. Before he became the CEO of the company in 2016, he was the Senior Vice President of Control Products and Solutions in the company. Currently, he also serves as the Chairman of the Board as well. Blake graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in mechanical engineering.