Hi all — We’ve heard loud and clear that you have questions about our plans for our Network Monitor app so I wanted to take a second to acknowledge 1) we hear you, 2) share what we know today, and 3) commit to keeping you informed as we have additional details about our plans.
As you know, we launched Network Monitor 2 ½ years ago to tackle an essential part of your day — monitoring the critical devices in your environment. We’ve learned a ton, and you’ve been great about sharing your feedback on how we’ve done. We got a lot of things right and we learned even more along the way.
With that context, I wanted to share that we’ve decided to stop development of our on-premises Network Monitor app and plan to create a new lighter-weight, cloud-based version. Despite our best efforts and a great group of users, the application just wasn’t used by enough IT professionals or with the frequency that our business model necessitates. That’s obviously critically important to the long-term viability of a product in most tech companies, and the same holds true for us. Additionally, as we’ve talked to you and better defined our product strategy, it’s become clear we’ll focus our app resources in two key areas — our existing on-prem Help Desk and Inventory apps and our growing collection of cloud-based tools.
We recognize network monitoring is critical to providing an IT management offering you can get value from every day, which is why it remains important to us. Our cloud tools are architected in a modular fashion that could allow us to integrate monitoring, inventory, help desk, and other future tools in a seamless way. It also gives us the flexibility to add new features, without building and maintaining separate apps.
Finally, Spiceworks on-prem Help Desk and Inventory applications are not impacted by this decision in any way. As you all know, they have a long history and a robust and active user base. We’re continuing to invest in its development. In fact, we’ll have some news to share soon.
Below are some additional questions you may have about our plans and we’re happy to answer any other burning questions about today’s news or our plans.
I currently use the on-prem Network Monitor app. What do I need to do?
Nothing, right now. Many users are getting value from the features of Network Monitor 1.4 as they are today. You can continue to download and install Network Monitor and we’ll continue to provide support in the form of answering questions and providing deployment advice. We’ll also continue to address severe security issues, if any.
We’re planning to work with our users on an easy transition from on-prem when the time comes.
Ok, so what kinds of features are planned for in the first cloud release? How do I get involved?
We are already making progress on the backend infrastructure, and we’re simultaneously surveying Network Monitor users to find out which features are most important to you. Fill out the survey and be sure to add your email address. That is the group we are going to call for research.
Will your cloud tools integrate with each other?
Yes! Our cloud tools will integrate seamlessly together to improve your experience with each tool.
Will the cloud version monitor my network from the internet?
No. The “poller” would still run from the inside of your network, it’s just the UI and the database that would be in the cloud. You won’t have open monitoring ports into your network.
When are you planning to make the cloud version available?
We aren’t able to commit, yet, to a timeframe. This is just the current plan and we wanted to share it with you guys in the spirit of transparency.
How does this impact on-prem Help Desk and Inventory?
It does not have any impact on our other on-prem apps. We will have news to share here soon in regards to Spiceworks 8.0.
And as with all future plans, these are subject to change. We’ll let you know more details as things solidify. Subscribe to this post to get the latest information.
