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SolarWinds Inc. (nyse: SWI) develops and markets enterprise information technology (IT) infrastructure management software to IT professionals at organizations of all sizes.

Topping Forbes Magazine’s 2012 list of America’s Best Small Companies, SolarWinds is headquartered in Austin, Texas, with sales and product development offices in Salt Lake City, Utah; Cork, Ireland; Brno, Czech Republic; Singapore; Chennai, India; and Brisbane, Australia.

The company’s business is built on providing IT departments with management software that simplifies the work and solves the problems faced every day by professionals managing IT infrastructures. SolarWinds offers a downloadable alternative to enterprise IT management from such vendors as CA Technologies, BMC, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard.

“Aiming for 80 percent of the functionality of rival offerings from IBM Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co., the company sells its wares for one-tenth as much,” Forbes reported in October 2012. Such savings have fueled annual sales growth of 38 percent since 2006.” SolarWinds has more than 100,000 customers worldwide, ranging from small businesses to more than 425 of the Fortune 500 firms.

“Internet data traffic is expected to triple over the next five years,” Forbes added. “Despite its green energy name, SolarWinds is in the middle of the trend.”

SolarWinds provides numerous free tools used by over a million network and systems administrators.

SolarWinds hosts an online community called thwack, with more than 125,000 users worldwide.

History
SolarWinds was founded in 1999 by brothers Dave and Don Yonce in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Designed to create faster, easier network-management tools, the fledgling company was profitable in its first year of business. SolarWinds keeps costs down through such means as an internal sales force that markets through the web and connects with potential customers over the phone, which helps the company average a 50 percent profit on every sale, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

The company relocated to Austin, Texas, in 2006. Sales have averaged a 38 percent annual increase since the move. From 2005 to 2007, the company more than doubled its revenue, annually increasing from $27.9 million to $61.7 million. SolarWinds subsequently acquired several companies, including Neon Software and ipMonitor Corp., and opened a European sales office in Ireland.

In 2007, SolarWinds raised funding from Austin Ventures, Bain Capital and Insight Venture Partners. Following the funding, SolarWinds acquired several companies including Neon Software and ipMonitor Corp. and opened a European sales office in Ireland.

SolarWinds completed its initial public offering of $112.5 million in 2009. The company also announced its professional certification program, the SolarWinds Certified Professional Program (SCP) for network management, which tests professionals in five areas: network management fundamentals, network management planning, network management operation, network performance troubleshooting and Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) administration and service.

In 2012, SolarWinds’ total revenue reached a company record of $269 million, delivering operating margins of 53.8 percent – the highest level since the company’s IPO in 2009. Total revenue growth accelerated to 36 percent in 2012, up from 30 percent for 2011. SolarWinds also expanded into Brazil, Germany and Japan.

Forbes magazine later that year placed SolarWinds atop the America’s Best Small Companies list, reporting that “it offers IT departments affordable software to monitor networks and servers.”

In 2013, SolarWinds announced plans to invest $50 million on an operations hub in Salt Lake City that would generate 1040 jobs in the region within 20 years, Utah Business magazine reported.

On SolarWinds’ success, Steve Ashley, senior software and services analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. said to the Austin American-Statesman: "Their products are unique, and they've done a great job of adding to their offerings through acquisitions. That has kept them growing and maintaining above-average profitability, and we expect that to continue."

“The continued growth is part of SolarWinds’ larger plan,” said CEO Kevin Thompson. "We're answering the doubters by showing success and showing growth,” he said. “Our goal is to be a billion-dollar software company, and our goal is to do it quickly."

Products
SolarWinds sells more than 60 different products and free tools that address a variety of IT-management issues, including network management, server and application management, virtualization management, storage management, and IT security management.

Key Acquisitions

 * N-able Technologies (2013)
 * RhinoSoft (2012)
 * EminentWare (2012)
 * Athena Security (2012)
 * RoveIT (2012)
 * Web Help Desk (2012)
 * Hyper9, Inc. (2011)
 * TriGeo Network Security (2011)
 * DameWare (2011)
 * DNSstuff.com (2011)
 * Tek-Tools, Inc. (2010)
 * Kiwi Enterprises (2009)
 * Neon Software (2007)