We’ve come a long way.
25 years ago, a network engineer had an idea. The tools he used to solve IT problems weren’t as simple or effective as he needed—and they didn’t work how he wanted them to work. So, to make his team’s daily routine a little easier, he created his own. His idea proved successful—he founded SolarWinds in Tulsa, Oklahoma, moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas, in 2006, and took a first step into the global market by opening an office in Cork, Ireland, one year later.
In the years that followed, SolarWinds expanded and diversified its portfolio, moving beyond network management to systems and database monitoring, then application performance and IT service management. Most recently, the company built by IT pros for IT pros has leveraged its entire array of IT performance monitoring and management capabilities to redefine observability in response to the evolving needs of IT teams worldwide.
Today, SolarWinds proudly serves more than 300,000 customers across the globe. In all this time, we’ve remained faithful to the principles of that first idea, providing IT pros with simple, powerful, secure solutions to help them manage their infrastructure. Our customers’ success fuels our own. THWACK®, our vibrant user community, currently has nearly 200,000 members. It’s a place for collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and the exchange of best practices among IT professionals around the world. Above all, THWACK is where we listen, so that we can better understand the needs and concerns of our customers. Then, we craft precision-engineered solutions to help them meet today’s technology challenges.
And there are plenty of challenges: tight budgets, talent shortages, the delicate balance between security and usability for end-users, and the relentless pace of technological evolution continue to test IT pros every day. Many of the users we spoke to for the SolarWinds IT Evolution Survey say that the cloud has been the most significant game-changer of the past 25 years, revolutionizing how their organizations manage the performance of hybrid infrastructures. The increasing complexity of hybrid IT environments will continue to present hurdles, and that’s why SolarWinds continues to innovate, ensuring that our customers are well-equipped to oversee their ecosystem regardless of where they are on their digital transformation journey.
This anniversary milestone is a chance to celebrate achievements but also an opportunity to consider what lies ahead. The SolarWinds IT Evolution Survey gives us insights into our customers’ expectations for the future. They see artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning as the critical forces set to reshape our industry in the next 25 years. While automation has already made a substantial impact, the adoption of AI within IT operations is just beginning. Since 2019, SolarWinds has incorporated sophisticated anomaly detection algorithms to help customers proactively identify issues before they become problems. We continue to develop our AIOps capabilities so that our customers can leverage the leading data management solutions to keep their systems running smoothly.
Looking forward, the question is not simply “How can we innovate?” but rather “How can we innovate securely?” Cybersecurity threats have comprised the biggest IT challenges over the past 25 years and represent some of the most significant risks expected in the next quarter-century. At SolarWinds, we have worked hard to position ourselves as an industry leader in enterprise software security. Our Secure by Design principles, zero-trust architecture, and Next-Generation Build System provide optimum protection in a dynamic threat landscape. Secure by Design isn’t a static framework but a set of principles that are always evolving to keep pace with emerging threats. As we plan for the future, the safety of our users’ data remains at the center of everything we do.
The IT landscape has transformed since one network engineer had his idea back in 1999. As technology has become more complex, we’ve evolved our solutions to ensure their outcome is the same—simple processes guaranteeing a better quality of work for those we serve. We’re guided by the belief that just because the technology underlying our work becomes increasingly complicated doesn’t mean our lives must be more complicated, too. As we look forward to the next quarter-century, we’re proud to know that our offerings ease the daily burden of IT professionals worldwide. And there’s so much more to come. We’ll continue to cultivate good ideas and deliver excellent solutions to make sure our customers have the tools they need to deal with whatever technology throws at them in the next 25 years.
Read more on SolarWinds celebrating 25 years of excellence in IT management and innovation
This Blog Post contains “forward-looking” statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the recent enforcement action filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission against SolarWinds relating to the 2020 cyberattack (the “Cyber Incident”). The information in this Blog Post is based on management's beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to management. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts and may be identified by terms such as "aim," "anticipate," "believe," "can," "could," "seek," "should," "feel," "expect," "will," "would," "plan," "intend," "estimate," "continue," "may," or similar expressions and the negatives of those terms. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to risks related to the Cyber Incident, including with respect to (a) numerous financial, legal, reputational and other risks to us related to the Cyber Incident, including risks that the incident, SolarWinds’ response thereto or litigation and investigations related to the Cyber Incident may result in the loss of business as a result of termination or non-renewal of agreements or reduced purchases or upgrades of our products, reputational damage adversely affecting customer, partner and vendor relationships and investor confidence, increased attrition of personnel and distraction of key and other personnel, indemnity obligations, damages for contractual breach, penalties for violation of applicable laws or regulations, significant costs for remediation and the incurrence of other liabilities, and risks related to the impact of any such costs and liabilities resulting from the exhaustion of our insurance coverage related to the Cyber Incident, (b) litigation and investigation risks related to the Cyber Incident, including as a result of the civil complaint recently filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission against us and our current Chief Information Security Officer relating to the previously disclosed Wells Notices, including that we may incur significant costs in defending ourselves and may be unsuccessful in doing so, resulting in exposure to potential penalties, judgements, fines, settlement-related costs and penalties and other costs and liabilities related thereto, and (c) the possibility that our steps to secure our internal environment, improve our product development environment and ensure the security and integrity of the software that we deliver to our customers may not be successful or sufficient to protect against future threat actors or attacks or be perceived by existing and prospective customers as sufficient to address the harm caused by the Cyber Incident, and (d) such other risks and uncertainties described more fully in documents filed with or furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by SolarWinds, including the risk factors discussed in SolarWinds’ Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 filed on February 22, 2023, SolarWinds’ Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2023 filed on May 4, 2023, SolarWinds’ Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2023 filed on August 9, 2023 and SolarWinds’ Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2023 that SolarWinds anticipates filing on or before November 9, 2023. All information provided in this Blog Post is as of the date hereof, and SolarWinds undertakes no duty to update this information except as required by law.
