Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis
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@scottalanmiller said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
lots and lots of words. A wall of text, if you will.
tl;dr
Righto you lot, cranky-pants off and professional pants on.Time to be helpful.
I brought cupcakes 🧁
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@It-Unicorn said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
i'm sad panda
. Lee Y and Chris W. gone. Brilliant minds. 
I think they had a great idea, but screwed up on implementing it. Their back end was insanely complex when there was no reason for it to be.
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For ML to actually be a real competitor to SW, this node.bb will not suffice in it's current state.
It's great as a categorized bulletin board or forum, but beyond that it's not enough. At least not as it's currently laid out. There are more aspects to the SW community platform that make it better than ML's besides the discussion threads themselves.
I like the SW platform for this kind of thing more.
This is my firm opinion of course
I'm not saying the SW platform is perfect... There are a ton of bugs and annoyances and lots of room for improvement. But at a high level, that's my opinion.
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@Obsolesce said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
For ML to actually be a real competitor to SW, this node.bb will not suffice in it's current state.
We actually hear the opposite all of the time. We get regular feedback that this is the best platform that people have used. We hear people come here and talk about how SW doesn't compete on the platform level.
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@Obsolesce said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
There are more aspects to the SW community platform that make it better than ML's besides the discussion threads themselves.
Such as?
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@scottalanmiller said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@Obsolesce said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
There are more aspects to the SW community platform that make it better than ML's besides the discussion threads themselves.
Such as?
Over zealous moderation.
Come on, I want to be abused by the people in charge.
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@DustinB3403 said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@scottalanmiller said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@Obsolesce said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
There are more aspects to the SW community platform that make it better than ML's besides the discussion threads themselves.
Such as?
Over zealous moderation.
Come on, I want to be abused by the people in charge.
Kinky?
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@IRJ said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@DustinB3403 said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@scottalanmiller said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@Obsolesce said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
There are more aspects to the SW community platform that make it better than ML's besides the discussion threads themselves.
Such as?
Over zealous moderation.
Come on, I want to be abused by the people in charge.
Kinky?
Just the thought process of a SpiteWorks moderator on their first day.
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Well I for one never knew this forum existed until yesterday, after doing a search for additional information regarding Spiceworks being sold, but I'm happy to be a new member and help contribute. Pass the cupcakes please!
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I must admit the main draw for me to Spiceworks was the auditing capability. The community was a welcome addition and something that continued to bring value to the product over time, but I must admit I was with Spiceworks since version 1.7, so pretty much from the start.
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@bstilts6301 said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
Well I for one never knew this forum existed until yesterday, after doing a search for additional information regarding Spiceworks being sold, but I'm happy to be a new member and help contribute. Pass the cupcakes please!
That's awesome, welcome!
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Thanks Scott, glad to see a familiar face
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@scottalanmiller said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@bstilts6301 said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
Well I for one never knew this forum existed until yesterday, after doing a search for additional information regarding Spiceworks being sold, but I'm happy to be a new member and help contribute. Pass the cupcakes please!
That's awesome, welcome!
@scottalanmiller - Knowing you had discussions with them, I figured I would ask first. Would it be wrong to mention Mangolassi in reply to a post in that discussion on SW. Someone asked about additional forums but I have not replied yet.
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@pmoncho said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@scottalanmiller said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@bstilts6301 said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
Well I for one never knew this forum existed until yesterday, after doing a search for additional information regarding Spiceworks being sold, but I'm happy to be a new member and help contribute. Pass the cupcakes please!
That's awesome, welcome!
@scottalanmiller - Knowing you had discussions with them, I figured I would ask first. Would it be wrong to mention Mangolassi in reply to a post in that discussion on SW. Someone asked about additional forums but I have not replied yet.
Not wrong at all. Spread the word as much as you like anywhere.
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@pmoncho said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@scottalanmiller said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@bstilts6301 said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
Well I for one never knew this forum existed until yesterday, after doing a search for additional information regarding Spiceworks being sold, but I'm happy to be a new member and help contribute. Pass the cupcakes please!
That's awesome, welcome!
@scottalanmiller - Knowing you had discussions with them, I figured I would ask first. Would it be wrong to mention Mangolassi in reply to a post in that discussion on SW. Someone asked about additional forums but I have not replied yet.
Mentioning ML would be awesome!
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@Obsolesce said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@pmoncho said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@scottalanmiller said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@bstilts6301 said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
Well I for one never knew this forum existed until yesterday, after doing a search for additional information regarding Spiceworks being sold, but I'm happy to be a new member and help contribute. Pass the cupcakes please!
That's awesome, welcome!
@scottalanmiller - Knowing you had discussions with them, I figured I would ask first. Would it be wrong to mention Mangolassi in reply to a post in that discussion on SW. Someone asked about additional forums but I have not replied yet.
Not wrong at all. Spread the word as much as you like anywhere.
Exactly! Get the word out. Everyone is welcome here.
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@scottalanmiller
Thanks for all your considerate words and careful thoughts about this. I'm very appreciative of this thread, and particularly this post of yours, SAM.I wasn't (yet) kicked of SW, but have always found it an extremely odd place with many demonstrating being either very new to IT, or painfully constrained in their thinking based on knowing only what they know (due to their given opportunities thus far, in terms of exposure and "experience"), and often confusing any calls to review their established and limited (sometimes, not always) and/or ingrained assumptions about a problem and how to best approach it, with personal criticism. Which is also commonplace for people new to IT or particularly defensive about their knowledge of IT (and the manifold topics and considerations that "IT" encompasses).
I was also sad to see you go/be forced out of SW, but theres much history there that I wasn't party to, nor (would I ever) care to be. While I already was definitely aware of MangoLassi long ago, when I saw that dbeato had joined here and/or become more active, I was happy to see it, and made a point of checking in here more often.
Very interesting to get some of your behind-the-scenes perspectives, SAM. All of this certainly gives some pause in terms of what will happen now or eventually with SW and anything we post there.
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@DustinB3403 You can now google, "spiceworks layoffs" and a lot of topics will come up. They had to file with WARN because they laid off so many people... https://patch.com/texas/north-austin/austin-based-tech-firm-spiceworks-inc-lay-59-workers
They stated 59, but I believe it was actually closer to 80. If you read about warn, 59 is the minimum amount of employees they had to terminate to trigger WARN.
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@SQLMartinis that's a good point on WARN. For those of you who aren't familiar it's a federal law stating that anytime a company lays off more than 50 people at one location, they must give 60 days notice. In practice they usually just give two months severance rather than have you work the full 60 days. I've been a part of layoffs where this applied, and most times the companies try to lie to you about how they are giving two months severance because they are so generous. They don't admit that they are only doing it because it's the law.
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That's exactly what they did.
I would be shocked if they stick around. ZD purchased SW for an audience, that is dwindling due to the lack of support of their original tool suite.
totally speculating - but i bet Jay will be out in a year, he's been taking a backseat ride ever since goldman put in their people (they provided most recent funding rounds). It's clear goldman was really pulling the reigns when they put in that new CFO 18ish mos ago - which given the history of that excutive (google him) the mission was clear that they wanted to position the company for sale - i mean that $59M in series E funding has to be recouped somehow?
Also all the tools they developed were created with the sole purpose of being able to leverage the data they produce for more intelligent ad targeting (but as someone stated above the back end is so jacked like good luck with that).
They aren't thinking about, "what tools can we continue to support (inventory) or improve the lives of IT Pros" the attitude is definitely, "What tools can we produce to gather the data our vendors are most interested in." Honestly it's sad and disappointing. It's like the rockstar who became famous, and then forgot all their friends...
Anyway it's just the same song and dance as any start up failure... abandon your original mission and pivot towards the money train. Where really the money is in nurturing your original audience and purpose. Terrible.
All of this acquisition talk sent me on a bit of a wormhole, which is how i landed here. Really more of a stackoverflow lurker as i am not a straight up IT Pro - but am technical in nature. Can't wait to lurk here. I had no idea about the whole SAM removal... can't wait to explore that further...
