SolarWinds Sets Its Sights on the ITSM Market through Acquisition of Samanage and Introduction of a SolarWinds Service Desk Product


Company prepares to extend its IT management offerings by expanding the availability of affordable and easy to use service desk software to a broader spectrum of businesses in response to the pressures of digital business transformation and process automation.

AUSTIN, Texas, April 11, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI), a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT management software, today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Samanage, a highly reviewed and highly rated IT service desk solution company based in Cary, NC. Over the past 7 years, Samanage has built a strong, well-respected product guided by a customer-centricity that aligns well with SolarWinds’ mission and commitment to the technology professional community. SolarWinds plans to add the Samanage products to its IT Operations Management portfolio beginning in Q2 2019. The SaaS-based offering will complement the on-premise products the company offers today to serve the needs of IT organizations at businesses of all sizes – from the SMB to the large enterprise.

“For 20 years, SolarWinds has been committed to making IT look easy by arming technology pros with the powerful tools they need to solve today’s IT management challenges. We do this by responding to well-understood, everyday problems based on input and feedback from our customers and the IT professionals that we serve,” said Kevin Thompson, Chief Executive Officer, SolarWinds. “The IT Service Desk is core to any IT professional's job and it is something that they interact with every day to serve their employees.”

According to IDC, IT Service Management (ITSM) represents an over $6 billion market today and is forecasted to reach over $8.5 billion by 2023.1 This size reflects the evolution of the ITSM market.  ITSM is no longer the domain of large enterprises. Businesses of all sizes increasingly depend on technology to achieve optimal levels of productivity and efficiency, and drive business outcomes and success. There are very few providers who are positioned to serve the entire IT market, from small businesses to the Fortune 500, the way that SolarWinds and Samanage do. Mid-market and smaller businesses are underserved in the space, as existing offerings tend to focus on complex enterprise solutions that require dedicated staff and expensive professional services engagements. 

Most IT departments continue to use phone (77%) and email (87%) as their main support channels, but by adopting service desk software they could reduce resolution time by 13% improving not just IT service efficiency, but also employee productivity.2 This is even more pronounced in small and mid-sized businesses. In a recent SolarWinds survey, IT pros indicated that cost (76%) and ease of use (84%) were the critical, driving factors in the selection of an ITSM offering.3 This supports the need for a SolarWinds approach to ITSM – powerful, affordable, and easy to use products designed to solve problems the way that IT pros want them solved.

Thompson continued, “We believe that a powerful, market-leading ITSM solution offers us another compelling product to enhance our ability to serve IT professionals in organizations of all sizes while meaningfully expanding our total addressable market, including additional cross-sell opportunities within our large and expanding customer-base of more than 300,000 customers.”

“IT departments increasingly find themselves at the center of employee service and digital business transformation. As IT leaders pursue new technologies to transform their business, they have the ability to grow the role of service management from an IT help desk to intelligent employee service management across all departments,” said Doron Gordon, Founder & CEO, Samanage. “Deploying an employee service management mindset, coupled with an enterprise-wide service desk platform that supports it – like Samanage -- can help increase employee productivity and better connect employees to their customers. We are excited about the opportunity to bring our products together with the reach and strength of SolarWinds to enable IT organizations in companies of all sizes to achieve better business outcomes.”

SolarWinds plans to acquire Samanage for a purchase price of $350 million in cash or approximately $329 million net of cash acquired.  SolarWinds plans to fund the transaction primarily with its existing cash balance.  The transaction is expected to close before the end of Q2 2019. SolarWinds will provide additional details about the acquisition and its expected impact to 2019 financial results on the company’s Q1 2019 Earnings Call scheduled for April 24, 2019.

Goldman Sachs & Co. served as exclusive financial advisor to Samanage.

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  1. IDC, Worldwide IT Service Management Software Forecast, 2019-2023, Doc #US44868419, March 2019
  2. Samanage customer-base survey (emerging/enterprise) on surveymonkey.com in July 2017; 408 total responses.
  3.  ITSM Survey on THWACK.com of SWI customer base in March 2019; 1753 total responses.

About SolarWinds
SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) is a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT infrastructure management software. Our products give organizations worldwide, regardless of type, size or IT infrastructure complexity, the power to monitor and manage the performance of their IT environments, whether on-premises, in the cloud, or in hybrid models. We continuously engage with all types of technology professionals—IT operations professionals, DevOps professionals, and managed service providers (MSPs)—to understand the challenges they face maintaining high-performing and highly available IT infrastructures. The insights we gain from engaging with them, in places like our THWACK online community, allow us to build products that solve well-understood IT management challenges in ways that technology professionals want them solved. This focus on the user and commitment to excellence in end-to-end hybrid IT performance management has established SolarWinds as a worldwide leader in network management software and MSP solutions. Learn more today at www.solarwinds.com.

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding SolarWinds’ current expectations. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, references to SolarWinds’ expectations regarding the timing of the closing of the transaction and the addition of the Samanage products into the SolarWinds IT Operations Management portfolio, the growth of the ITSM market and its ability to cross sell the Samanage products. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include those risks and uncertainties described more fully in the section captioned “Risk Factors” in the SolarWinds’ Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements contained in this announcement are made as of this date, and SolarWinds undertakes no duty to update such information except as required under applicable law.

The SolarWinds, SolarWinds & Design, Orion, and THWACK trademarks are the exclusive property of SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC or its affiliates, are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and may be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other SolarWinds trademarks, service marks, and logos may be common law marks or are registered or pending registration. All other trademarks mentioned herein are used for identification purposes only and are trademarks of (and may be registered trademarks of) their respective companies.

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