Rob Meinhardt, KACE1

co-founder and CEO
Mountain View - CA United States

The big idea: In 25 words or less, please tell us how this Fast 50 Nominee is helping to address the planet's problems.

KACE changes how IT administrators approach systems management, bringing “Tivo-like” simplicity and significant cost savings to a market known for overly-complicated and expensive solutions.

Please describe how this nominee is using business as a force of positive change. What technology, idea, or strategy is the nominee using -- and what problem, such as global warming, poverty, or pollution, does it address? (suggested length: 100 words)

KACE's KBOX Family of Appliances saves customers’ time and their companies’ money. Now more than ever, systems management professionals in medium enterprises are charged with doing more with fewer resources. Often, they are wearing multiple hats, including those of the IT Manager, Desktop Manager, Network Administrator, Help Desk Manager and Systems Administrator. This situation arises because the size and sophistication of their management environment has grown, but the staff and budgetary resources needed to administer it have not kept pace.

In these mid-sized companies, efforts are underway to alleviate the strain, but solutions have not yet been deployed to the full range of IT processes, including patch management, software/hardware inventory, software distribution, security enforcement, helpdesk ticket management and new machine deployment. This results in eighty-seven percent of mid-market IT staff forced to work nights, weekends and holidays to complete repetitive systems management tasks.(1) Traditional software-based solutions exist, but these are designed large organizations, and the investment necessary for the pre-requisite software, hardware, services, maintenance and training have simply proven too costly and too complex. Now there's an alternative.

The KBOX Family of Systems Management Appliances provides medium enterprises with comprehensive, end-to-end systems management and deployment capabilities via affordable and easy-to-use appliances: the KBOX Systems Management Appliance and the KBOX Systems Deployment Appliance. They fulfill all of the systems management needs of a medium enterprise from initial system deployment to ongoing management and retirement, including initial discovery and computer inventory, software distribution, configuration management, patch management, security vulnerability remediation, asset management, help desk, remote control and reporting.

The KBOX approaches systems management from an entirely different angle. Traditional systems management solutions are layered with complexities and stagger under the weight of high costs - suffering from an excessive need for attention in hardware procurement, software installation and integration. Rethinking how a solution is packaged, how it is used and who the primary users are, the KBOX by KACE delivers the ability to handle complex systems management tasks within an established market in a whole new way: Packaged in an appliance, easy to use, and addressing the concerns of the IT administrator end-users as well as the C-level executives they report to.

But KACE didn’t stop innovating there. KACE acquired AppDeploy.com in 2007, the leading destination for systems and application administrators, in order to advance this novel approach to systems management. Directly from within the KBOX management console, any systems management professional can access application management and deployment information via exclusive AppDeploy Live functionality. This feature eliminates time spent hunting for context-based application information - now available from a single, integrated, and reliable community resource.

KACE's purpose-built appliance approach to systems management and its ever-expanding, searchable knowledge base are saving IT professionals' significant time and their companies' money.

“We selected KACE primarily for its affordability, energy-saving capabilities, and also rich functionality,” said Mark McCann, I.S. Customer Support Manager for financial services company Royal Liver. “Additionally, we’re happily taking full advantage of the KBOX to manage our IT assets with extreme detail, as well as manage our physical assets outside of the IT department. This capability was a nice bonus for such a complete product at an incredibly low price-point.”

“We’ve been using the KBOX for over a year now, and the Help Desk Module has become the foundation of our organization in dealing with issues within our complex network,” said Jason Cummins, I.S. Services Manager for retail furniture chain Jordan’s Furniture. “From the ease of deployment and training, to the time savings from remote software distribution and the help desk module, the KBOX has revolutionized the way our IT department functions and gives our company the support it needs to continue its current growth unhindered.”

For more customer testimonials on how KACE is revolutionizing systems management, please visit: www.kace.com/customervideos

(1)King Research, IT Responsibility Survey, July 2006

What are the results, both financial and social? How has the nominee's business performed, and what impact has it had on the problem it addresses? (suggested length: 100 words)

Approaching systems management through a purpose-built appliance enables KACE to blow away the competition – showing an 83% win rate in head-to-head competition against the much larger and well established Altiris (now owned by Symantec). KACE’s approach provides exceptional performance, reliability and scalability through a purpose-built solution that is pre-tuned, hardened and self-healing.

KACE is saving its more than 500 customers time and money. Installation is plug-and-play, training takes hours (instead of weeks), and ROI is realized within months - not years. Customers have reclaimed hours of lost IT time and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in energy and staff savings. A recent customer survey highlights the benefits KACE customers receive, with 90 percent rating their satisfaction of the KBOX extremely high and another 87 percent reporting the appliance paid for itself in less than one year.

KACE’s solution is shaking up the traditional desktop management and software deployment market and rapidly building itself a reputation for capabilities the competition can’t match: ease-of-use, quick deployment, and affordability.

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