- Opsware
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Opsware Inc. 
Type Now owned by Hewlett Packard Founded September, 1999 (as Loudcloud, Inc.) Key people Marc Andreessen: Chairman and founder,[1]
Ben Horowitz: CEO and founder,[1]
Tim Howes: CTO and founder,[1]
In Sik Rhee: COO and founder,[1]
John O'Farrell: EVPProducts IT Management Software Website HP Web site Opsware, Inc. was a software company based in Sunnyvale, California that offered products for server and network device provisioning, configuration, and management targeted toward enterprise customers. Opsware had offices in New York City, Seattle, Washington and Cary, North Carolina.
In July 2007, HP announced that it had agreed to acquire Opsware for $1.6 billion in cash ($14.25 per share). The acquisition closed on September 21, 2007.[2]
Contents
History
The company that was formerly known as Loudcloud was founded on September 9, 1999 (i.e., 9/9/99) by Marc Andreesen and Jim Clark as a managed services provider.[3] The company was one of the first to offer Software as a Service computing with an Infrastructure as a Service model.[4] According to Wired Magazine, LoudCloud was one of the first vendors to talk about cloud computing and Software as a Service.[5]
After selling the operations side of the business to EDS in the summer of 2002, Loudcloud became Opsware and went to market as a technology company, offering the software that had been developed internally to support customer systems via automated server life-cycle management. In 2004, Opsware acquired asset management systems provider Tangram Enterprise Solutions,[6] and in February 2005 acquired network device configuration management vendor Rendition Networks.[7] In July 2006 Opsware acquired CreekPath for its Data Center Automation (DCA) product offering to add provisioning of storage components.[8] In April 2007 Opsware acquired Seattle-based iConclude and its run-book automation software in order to integrate datacenter management from end-to-end.[9]
In July 2007, HP announced that it had agreed to acquire Opsware for $1.6 billion in cash ($14.25 per share), sixteen times revenues. It was HP's third largest acquisition at the time behind Compaq and Mercury Interactive.[10] HP now markets Opsware products and software as a service solutions within its HP Data Center Automation Center, as part of the HP Software Division.[11]
Products
Opsware had three main systems that it marketed. The Server Automation System (SAS) was designed to provide provisioning, policy enforcement, compliance reporting, and patching of Windows, Unix and Linux servers across thousands of servers. It is now sold as HP Server Automation software.[12] The Network Automation System (NAS) was designed to provide network device provisioning, policy enforcement, security lock-down, software management, and compliance reporting across thousands of devices from over 500 variants of device vendors, models, and OS versions. This product was also OEM'd by Cisco Systems and was called the Cisco "Network Compliance Manager" (NCM). It is now sold as HP Network Automation software.[13] The third system marketed by Opsware was the Process Automation System (PAS), designed to provide run-book automation from former partner iConclude (who was acquired in March 2007). It is now sold as HP Operations Orchestration software.[14]
Customers
Opsware customers included its now parent HP, GE, EDS (whose acquisition was completed by HP August 26, 2008,[15] and is now called HP Enterprise Services[16]), the Federal government of the United States and numerous Fortune 500 companies who used the software to automate their IT infrastructure.
References
- ^ a b c d David Sheff (2000-08). "Crank it up". Wired Magazine. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.08/loudcloud_pr.html.
- ^ HP Closes Opsware Acquisition news release
- ^ "The Case for the Fat Start-Up." Wall St. Journal's All Things Digital: 3/17, Ben Horowitz.
- ^ Computeractive.co.uk
- ^ Wired Magazine. "Crank it up." David Sheff. 2000-08
- ^ Business Wire. Opsware Inc. Completes Acquisition of Tangram Enterprise Solutions; Integration of Products Furthers Opsware's Lead in Automation and Utility Computing
- ^ Business Wire. Opsware Completes Rendition Acquisition, Furthering Leadership in Rapidly Growing IT Automation Market. Retrieved 2010-02-27.
- ^ Business Wire. Opsware Completes Acquisition of Creekpath Systems; Acquisition Provides Foundation Technology. Retrieved 2010-02-27.
- ^ Northwest Innovation. iConclude Acquisition Completes. Retrieved 2010-02-27.
- ^ China Martens, IDG News Service. HP Buying Opsware in $1.6 Billion Deal. PC World
- ^ HP Data Center Automation Center product pages
- ^ HP Website product pages
- ^ HP Product Web page
- ^ HP Product Web pages
- ^ Stacey Higginbotham. GigaOM. HP Completes EDS Buy, Heads for the Clouds
- ^ News Release. EDS, an HP Company, Becoming HP Enterprise Services
- Lawton, Christopher and Kingsbury, Kevin. "H-P Makes Move Into Data Centers", The Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2007. Accessed July 23, 2007.
External links
Categories:- Companies established in 1999
- Companies based in Sunnyvale, California
- Hewlett-Packard acquisitions
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