Unofficial Spiceworks

Spiceworks not long ago started there Virtualization Buyers Club and it is growing stronger by the day, the virtualization buyers club is a lot like the backup buyers club it provides a great range off resources to help you decide what Virtualization solution is best for you.

The Spiceworks Community team have put together a huge amount of resources and sponsors together to help make your life easier and get that bit closer to being “Everything IT”. There are currently near 20 PDFs, 2 calculators, a zip and many web links to help provide YOU with all the information you need to help make a informed decision.

• Step 1 – Learn – If your just looking at getting more information on virtualization from companies like VMware, Microsoft, Sun, Citrix and even Oracle this is the place to start. There are great resources here from all the vendors as well as ones Spiceworks have made for you. Its a great place to start to look into virtualizing even if your a bit unsure about it. The buyers club will also slowly start to fill up with information about other peoples experiences with the different technologies. So jump on into the community and learn about the different types virtualization solutions available to you.

• Step 2 – Decide – So your ready to decide and using the resources in step 1 you have managed to work out virtualization is the way forward for your company? Good on you. Now comes the make or break bit, picking the solution that’s best for you. With 5 vendors and each of them having 3/4 solutions it can be a messy place to be, you could be looking at up to 20 different solutions. Checkout the Awesome Product Comparison Guide this is the first community powered or “crowd-sourced” comparison guide on the community with more planned. Martin9700 did a fantastic job kicking it off, but it doesn’t stop there more people will be adding to it over time and even you could contribute. Once you have check out the Comparison Guide Spiceworks have provided you with the contact details for all there virtualization sponsors. Pickup the phone, drop them a email, use the web forms. Fire your questions at them or just post your questions into the community.

• Step 3 – Buy – Don’t want to be flooded with LOADS of sales calls? Spiceworks broker the quote so you remain anonymous! Going to quotes can be the pain of the job, loads of calls to make then loads of people phoning you back never sure you gave them all the same information. Spiceworks are here to help, you can use their simple form to get quotes from VMware, Microsoft, Sun, Citrix and Oracle for their virtualization solutions. The form wont take more than 5 minutes to fill in.  Get your quotes now

What if I’m not looking to buy just yet?

What? Your not going to buy virtualization right now? Well that’s ok! The Spiceworks resources will stay up and around for as long as the community is there. You can pop over to the Virtualization Buyers Club any time you like to get the latest information. All the information from the Backup Buyers Club is still there waiting for people to read and use. Don’t feel pressured into buying now if you can’t. Just remember when the time comes it will be there ready waiting for you.

So what are you waiting for?

Jump on over to the Virtualization Buyers Club now!

Please note you have to be part of the Spiceworks Community to access some of the resources to sign up you will need Spiceworks, Download it here.

The ups and downs of working with social media my experiences with Spiceworks

First off… This isn’t really all Spiceworks related but just had the idea for a post along these lines and Spiceworks-News is about the only place I could put it. It is however all based on my experience with Spiceworks.

So everyone knows what social media is now days? And that big buzz word of “web 2.0” and companies like Spiceworks are starting to exploit it to market there products and IT conferences like Spiceworld. Places like Skype, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Digg and Ustream are regularly used.

So what do I think are the advantages and disadvantages of Social media and networking…

The ups (Advantages)

There are many pro’s to social media and well they do outweigh the downs.

A great example of this was at Spiceworld 2009 Austin, I (akp982) was about to receive a Spicies award when Justin Dorfman (from Frugal IT) had the idea of using Skype to allow me to give my acceptance speech. I ran around and got a microphone ready and he ran off to the Spiceworks Staff to hand him his laptop which got pushed onto stage. This was great, I was watching the live stream though Ustream and also talking live to the presenters. It was a very weird feeling I was in the UK and talking and watching people in the US. Without the Ustream chat to get me on skype with Justin and without skype for allowing us to make a “call” it would not have been possible. It was organised so quick the presenters were shocked to hear that I was ready to talk to them.

Social media mainly things like twitter can really help promote your products very quickly by telling lots of people instantly. When Spiceworks 4.1 was released it was mentioned by over 100 people on twitter and Spiceworks are expecting more people to spread 4.5 when it comes out. From this people will quickly write reviews to jump on the back off this and give their blog or website a boost in traffic and hope for some regular readers. Frugal IT is and example of a site that did well at this with there Spiceworld 2009 coverage (http://fr.ugal.it/spiceworld-2009) they were able to get multiple people to tweet, blog and just share their link. With this link spread all over the world, people would then visit the site pickup on the ads and information around the Spiceworld page and may then come back in the future. I know we (Spiceworks-News) jump on even the oddest of things. We often pickup on blog posts about or mentioning Spiceworks and re post the first paragraph in hope for a ping back. Posts like (Getting IT spicey at your church) got a ping backs out there and we may have got another 1/2 visitors (they all add up over time to now around 300 people looking at Spiceworks-News on a daily basis according to Google analytics… if only some of them posted comments).

Read More…

Guitar Hero, Spiceworks, Beer and a After Party.

So day one came to a end at 5 yesterday night but that didn’t stop the partying.

Off the staff and attendee’s went to Maggie’s Mae in downtown Austin to start the drinking and trying Avaya’s “Red Wave” drink.

With beer brought to you by Windows 7 and even the ghost busters turning up over the road it proved to be a great event.

Cant wait to watch the live streams to day and cant wait for Spiceworld London on the 4th December http://www.spiceworld2009.com/london/

Some Tweets

• dscammell: #SpiceWorld2009 rooftop dinner party @ Maggie Mae’s in Downtown Austin. http://twitpic.com/mj8gf
• Spiceworks And remember Avaya is sponsoring the party. Try their “Red Wave” drink. #spiceworld2009
• benbrookshire #spiceworld2009 over for the night for most. Some probably won’t remember past a few hours ago, though.
• jdorfman http://twitpic.com/mjtde – Wow. Rock star #spiceworld2009

Some links

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/spiceworld2009/

Tweets: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23spiceworld2009

More: http://fr.ugal.it/spiceworld-2009

• 20% of Enterprises in the U.S. use @spiceworks #spiceworld2009
• @spiceworks has 1,200 new members a day. 1 million users by 1Q 2010 #spiceworld2009
• Spiceworks is a Social Business App. 770k user/members. 200 Spiceheads on hand to learn more. #spiceworld2009.
• “Sometime the best place to get your strategy is to just listen to your customer.” Wish more companies thought that! #spiceworld2009
• More sponsored plugins to come, thanks to the API some great new plugins are coming
• @spiceworks revenue growth 2009 3x from 2008 #spiceworld2009
• “Spiceworks is the fastest growing IT app in history”. Scott Abel. #spiceworld2009
• @spiceworks cash flow positive 1Q 2010 #spiceworld2009
• Spiceworks was started because Scott wanted to be with the guys again, nothing about a good idea.
• “I think people are just scared of the term add supported.” by JAFOLLIT on the Livestream chat
• We mention “The iTunes of IT” and Francis shut up by Scott
• Ad supported came from a Gmail advert for $69 logo designs
• scouch40: My IT motto- Hope for the best, Plan for the worst.

Read More…

1. Helpdesk plugin – goes to Sean Wilson for his helpdesk Ticket AutoAssign plugin.
2. User portal – goes to Justin Davison for User Portal Submission Tracking this allows you can track where tickets got created, in the portal via email or the dashboard.
3. Inventory – Robert Netzel for Help-Desk, Inventory, Reports, & My Tools User Role (Modified) this is a great plug-in for roles to set what users can view what.
4. Most useful – Justin Durfman for Spiceworks keyboard shortcuts a very useful plugin to navigate Spiceworks using your keyboard rather than mouse.
5. Fun – Dominic Jackson for his Dilbert widget to help you keep track of the latest Dilbert fun while looking like your doing work.

Grand prize goes to Justin Dorfman who got all his expenses paid for Spiceworld2009

Well done guys

Well done again guys

Lots happened really quickly last night.

• Spiceworks got the TOC in place – http://community.spiceworks.com/education/projects/Spiceworks
• A new group – http://community.spiceworks.com/forum/376
• And some people to help out – like DomUK for Starting a SpiceCorps, Geek Section, Community or Craig M for Anything

Looks like this could be a big hitter.

Wonder if it will be mentioned at Spiceworld?

Mr Jdordman just posted

It seems that every IT related program/topic has a “For Dummies” book. I happen to love them and would actually pay for a copy of “Spiceworks for Dummies”

Spiceworks are getting stuff started and trying to open the community wiki for us.

Will you help out?

Spiceworks-News will be keeping you up to date with the growing’s and news about it but you can always checkout the topic in the community Spiceworks for Dummies book…

The bigger we can make this the better we can make Spiceworks and the community.

If you contribute you may see your name published in the book.

Bit of a more personal post this one, WTFBBQ has recently stumbled across my company website and has had fun playing with the “spinner” at the bottom.

Uhhh, about your website, akp982…

By WTFBBQ