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Welcome to the StackSafe's Newsletter, a publication in which you'll read about our latest happenings and get a sneak peek into what's coming up. Check out the news below and don't forget to refer to our website for details.

StackSafe Test Center to Launch at DEMO

We are very excited about the upcoming launch of Test Center and we hope you are too. This solution will answer a market need within IT Operations for pre-production staging and testing solutions. Using virtualization technology, Test Center helps IT teams see the impact of changes throughout the IT stack before they are released in the production environment.

Our recent study on downtime showed that six out of ten IT operations professionals said software infrastructure changes were the leading cause of downtime. A subsequent study on change management showed that the most dramatic changes in the maturity of change management processes happen in companies where there is a dedicated test environment that looks at the impact of changes across the IT stack. Test Center was created in direct response to these findings to enable companies to quickly and easily adopt more mature change management processes.

The product was made generally available for sale on December 19th and it will be publicly launched, with additional enhancements, on January 28th at the DEMO '08 show. We're looking forward to getting Test Center in the hands of customers and hearing feedback that will help us improve the product. Once you buy it and start using it in your organization, please stay in touch!

For product updates and availability be sure to visit our website

Hello Web 2.0...

We have entered the conversation! We have officially launched the StackSafe corporate blog... IT's About Uptime. Our blog covers a broad range of technologies, trends and solutions from the change management and virtualization space to downtime to corporate marketing and more in the hopes of starting ongoing conversations on these topics with readers and other companies.

Please read us, subscribe to us, link back to us, bookmark us and most importantly join the conversation yourself!

Change Management: Maturing the Process

After finding that software infrastructure changes are the leading cause of downtime in our last study, we again worked with Research Edge to dive into the issues around change management that make it the leading cause of downtime.

We found five major factors that can lead to downtime when change management processes are not managed correctly. We also determined how and when change management maturity can offer benefits to business operation:

Change Scheduling - Unscheduled versus scheduled/interval changes
Change Management Processes - Automated versus manual
Process Adoption - The importance of ITIL
Testing Environment - Pre-testing environment versus quarantined live testing
Testing Completeness - Testing changes against the entire stack versus a select few systems

Our research has revealed that not all change management activities will deliver the same positive business impact. There are specific factors that can dramatically increase the positive impact achieved from change management in complex software infrastructure environments. With the study's in depth analysis into these five areas, you can begin to see which ones will be most suitable for your company and will provide the greatest impact in areas such as: reduced downtime, the number of staff related to IT change management and the number of emergency changes as well as increased confidence and the overall smoothness of the change management process.

Check out the full study for yourself.

Downtime: IT's Nightmare Deconstructed

In July, in conjunction with Research Edge, we released a study focusing on the bogeyman of the IT world: downtime. We tried to determine what organizations suffer the most from downtime, how it happens and, most importantly, WHY it happens.

Although some of the trends revealed could be considered mostly common sense, like the fact that computer-related companies experience the most occurrences of downtime, some were fairly surprising to us and, we think, to you.

One interesting fact revealed by the study is that while the companies most concerned with downtime tend to be in the e-commerce field, the industry most worried about service outages is financial services. The reason? The sheer amount of money that financial institutions stand to lose if a trading application goes down, as well as the damage that downtime can do to their reputation.

The biggest factor causing downtime? After surveying more than 400 IT operations professionals, we found that six out of ten respondents cited application changes as the greatest contributor to downtime. We found this feeling is more than just perception. The research showed that as the number of application changes rise within an organization, so to do the number of service outages.

There were quite a few other interesting statistics that came out of the report, many more than we can cite here, so we would encourage you to check it out for yourself.

Windows Continues Dominance in the Software Stack

In December we took a look at the prevalence of Windows in the multi-tier stack across industries and across tiers. Our study, conducted by Research Edge, found depth of Microsoft's dominance in the server market across nearly every industry with almost 70 percent of the market share. The study of 400 IT operations professionals showed that despite widespread attention to other alternatives, Windows Server continues to be the platform of choice by IT Operations for multi-tier software applications.

For multi-tier applications across all application types, tiers and industries, Microsoft holds 68 percent of the market share through its Windows Server 2000, Server 2003 and Server NT operating systems. Its next closest competitor is Red Hat's Linux offering, which has a market share of just over seven percent. Over three-quarters of organizations also use the same operating system across every tier of their infrastructure, furthering reliance on one operating system vendor and platform.

The findings provide some insights into the impact of the continual Microsoft patches and updates to the change management processes and stability of IT infrastructure. You can find some other interesting statistics in the full study, available on our website.

Employee News

We are excited to share some recent news about additions to our management team as well as the activities of our team in the greater IT community. To keep up to date on all company happenings be sure to visit the News section of our website.

StackSafe Appoints Letitia Larry as Director of Engineering Services

January 9, 2008

Letitia Larry has joined StackSafe as the Director of Engineering Services. Letitia will be responsible for developing and maintaining a world-class customer experience by maintaining superior corporate quality standards and support. Her responsibilities include management of the StackSafe support organization, software quality assurance team and business continuity practices. Letitia comes to us from Secure Software, Inc., acquired by Fortify, where she was responsible for directing technical customer support, quality assurance, testing, configuration management and the technical writing staff.

Letitia commented "I am eagerly awaiting the launch of the StackSafe solution as I know it will answer a tremendous need in the IT Operations market. The team has developed a great product and I look forward to working with our customers to enhance the solution as they begin to integrate it into their daily operations."

StackSafe Appoints Cal Jeffrey as Vice President of Sales

November 29, 2007

Cal Jeffrey has been named Vice President of Sales where he'll be responsible for establishing our sales and channel partner strategies as well as hiring and training a sales force in preparation for our early 2008 product launch. With nearly 20 years of sales and management experience, Cal will set the grounds our sales strategy while strategically recruiting elite personnel to ensure a successful launch.

Cal commented, "I'm extremely excited about the management team and I'll be working with them to quickly establish StackSafe in the market. I'll also be looking for innovative sales professionals with the requisite skills to bring a brand new technology to market."

StackSafe Participates in Webinar Examining the Relationship Between Downtime and Change Management

Our own Dennis Powell, Senior Product Manager, participated in a Webinar discussing the findings from our study with Research Edge on the maturity of change management practices in IT organizations. The Webinar discussed the steps companies can take in advancing their change management maturity and, in turn, decrease unplanned downtime.

Upcoming Events and Tradeshows

Members of the StackSafe team will be attending, exhibiting or presenting at some industry shows in the near future. If you'll be there as well stop by and say hi!

January: DEMO '08
February: Pink Elephant IT Service Management Conference and Expo

StackSafe in the News

The buzz is building leading up to our product launch. Check out what the IT media and blogging community is saying about StackSafe. Can't get enough StackSafe news? Follow all of our media coverage in our Press Room.

Startup Of The Week: StackSafe Tackles Software Testing

InformationWeek, December 8, 2007

InformationWeek features StackSafe as its Startup of the Week and provides background information about the company, thoughts on the market challenge and a timeline of StackSafe corporate milestones.

NetworkWorld's 10 IT Management Start-Ups to Watch

NetworkWorld, September 17, 2007

NetworkWorld features StackSafe as one of its top ten IT management companies to watch in the coming months and profiles its technical management, funding situation and product.