SpikeSource expands beyond open source, pockets $10 million from Intel
Automated maintenance and testing service is aimed at platform vendors trying to recruit more application providers. Intel, a customer, also invests $10 million.
SpikeSource on Friday is introducing a version of its automated support and testing service tuned for the needs of IT industry platform providers.
The company also announced that Intel, a customer, has invested an additional $10 million into SpikeSource. Existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Fidelity Venture Partners, CMEA Ventures, and DAG Venture reinvested for an undisclosed sum.
The company's software, called the Solution Factory, automates the process of patching software for security problems and resolves conflicts among different components of a software "stack."
The twist with this product, which is hosted, is that SpikeSource will seek to create versions of it specific to large vendors' platforms.
Intel on Wednesday said it is using the software service to check that Intel-aligned application companies comply with Intel's hardware optimization technology. The program is scheduled to be available this summer.
"Platform vendors are in a war of trying to recruit ISVs (independent software vendors) to build solutions for their platforms and embed key technologies into their applications," said Dominic Sartorio, director of product management. This software "makes it easier to embed technologies and certify things."
SpikeSource is trying to attract other platform companies. Company executives wouldn't say which vendors they are talking to, but some likely targets would be SAP, Microsoft, AMD, and IBM, which of each have ISV programs.
The SpikeSource service is also an attempt to expand beyond the company's roots in open-source product certification.
The company originally launched around the idea that businesses needed support and maintenance services for strictly open-source products.
But it has shifted its focus toward ISVs that serve small and medium-size businesses. Increasingly, those ISVs and their customers use a mix of open-source and closed-source products, said Doug Laird, vice president of marketing.