GroundWork Improves Community Product Testing And Insight With BitRock Network Service

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—December 9, 2008—GroundWork Open Source, Inc. (www.groundworkopensource.com), the leader in commercial open source systems and network management software, today announced findings from the pre-release version of GroundWork Monitor Community Edition 5.3, made available to the community on November 11, 2008. The latest version of GroundWork Monitor is the first to incorporate BitRock’s Network Service update notification technology, which allows users to automatically receive notifications of patches, updates, and news, as well as voluntarily share GroundWork Monitor usage statistics.

“While raw download numbers have always been available for open source projects, quantifying how many downloads become active installations, and how they’re being used, has always been challenging and imprecise,” said Simon Bennett, product manager for GroundWork Open Source. “BitRock’s Network Service enables us to create a two-way data exchange with our users, allowing us to notify them from within GroundWork Monitor of available updates and technical bulletins, and allowing them to share product usage data with us. It’s a win-win that helps us better serve our users and provides valuable insight for product planning.”

During installation, GroundWork Monitor users have the option of enabling the BitRock Network Service. Since its initial launch four weeks ago, the pre-release version of GroundWork Monitor Community Edition 5.3 has been downloaded approximately 1,000 times. Of these, about 15% have “phoned home” to the BitRock service, providing the following data:

• Top installation countries are the United States (35.2%), Germany (9.1%), Japan and Netherlands (tie: 4.9% each), and the United Kingdom and South Africa (tie: 4.2% each).
• Top Linux distributions installed upon are CentOS (47.1%), Debian/Ubuntu (25.3%), SuSE (14.7%), Red Hat Enterprise Linux (4.2%), and Fedora Core (3.5%).
• 84.5% of the Linux distributions were 32 bit, while 15.4% of the installations were 64 bit.

"We're pleased that GroundWork has chosen BitRock Network Service for its entire range of monitoring solutions from the community to the enterprise," said Erica Brescia, BitRock's CEO. "BitRock Network Service further reduces the effort needed to maintain GroundWork Monitor and enhances its ease of use, lower costs, and greater flexibility relative to traditional network and systems management offerings."

Download:

To download the latest version of GroundWork Monitor Community Edition 5.3 pre-release please visit: http://www.groundworkopensource.com/community/downloads/5.3alpha.html

About GroundWork

San Francisco-based GroundWork Open Source, Inc. (http://www.groundworkopensource.com) is the market leader in commercial open source network and systems management software, delivering enterprise-class network, system and application management solutions at a fraction of the cost of proprietary solutions.

GroundWork's best of breed approach gives customers the flexibility to use diverse open source and proprietary technologies together under a unified interface, allowing users to leverage the advantages of open source while simultaneously preserving existing investments in legacy management tools. GroundWork’s solutions are in use at organizations like Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, SAIC, Seton Hall University, Siemens, and World Bank. GroundWork’s solutions are available from GroundWork, its partners including Red Hat, Unisys, Fujitsu, and a worldwide network of channel partners. The company is privately held, with investments from Canaan Partners, Mayfield Fund, JAFCO Ventures and SAP Ventures.

About BitRock

BitRock provides tools and services to help software companies build their businesses. Working with BitRock enables software vendors to deliver their software in easy to install packages and gain better insight into their user base to improve sales, support and product development.

Founded in 2003, BitRock is a privately held software company with offices in Seville, Spain and San Francisco, USA. BitRock's clients range from large corporations and governments to independent software vendors and educational institutions, as well as the leading open source companies.

Please visit www.BitRock.com for additional information.