Apr, 2010 : Spiceworks Partners with Rackspace Hosting

📅 April 27, 2010 - The company partners with Spiceworks to allow SMBs to manage their Rackspace email hosting services through the free Spiceworks social IT management application.

Rackspace Hosting, a hosting and cloud computing provider, yesterday announced that it has partnered with Spiceworks, a social business application service provider to allow small and medium businesses (SMBs) to manage their Rackspace email hosting services through the free Spiceworks social IT management application. The company claims that the integrated systems simplify the jobs of SMB IT professionals by allowing them to monitor and administrate Rackspace cloud email services within the Spiceworks IT management interface, rather than launching a separate portal.

The company explains that this relationship with Spiceworks allows it to extend the functionality and reach of its hosted email services, including Rackspace Email, Microsoft Exchange or a hybrid of both, through the use of Rackspaces API's that are available to customers and partners interested in integrating with the Rackspace cloud email platform. It states that for Spiceworks, the integration is part of an ongoing effort on its part to provide SMB IT professionals free management capabilities for their on-premise, cloud-based and hybrid IT infrastructures.

It avers that Spiceworks will support the management of Rackspace's cloud email services with the following key features:

• Email Usage - shows the current status of a company's Rackspace cloud email services, including the top 5 email users in the organization, the status of available licenses vs. used licenses, and the number of Blackberry and Active Sync accounts
• Account Management - provides users with a full list of the domains they manage with Rackspace, including the total number of mailboxes per domain
• Email Account Monitors - provides alerts when an individual mailbox nears its capacity limit
• Community - Rackspace cloud email users will have the opportunity to collaborate within the Spiceworks social IT management application and community of 950,000 IT professionals who currently use Spiceworks to manage over 31 million email accounts
  

"Both Rackspace and Spiceworks are committed to creating the best experience for our customers and making IT simple and affordable for businesses," said Jim Curry, VP of Corporate Development at Rackspace. "Through our relationship with Spiceworks, we'll provide a new avenue for nearly 1 million Spiceworks customers to integrate and manage the Rackspace cloud email platform within their IT."

"Managing IT today means more than just taking care of the computers and software within the four walls of your company," said Scott Abel, Co-Founder and CEO of Spiceworks. "Already, over 25 percent of SMBs rely on one or more cloud-based services to keep their organizations running, and that number keeps growing. By working with Rackspace, we're simplifying the jobs of IT professionals by giving them the ability to manage both their on-premise technologies and cloud-based services through a single integrated IT management application."