SEATTLE, Wash. – Apr 23, 2009 – Skytap, Inc., the leading provider of cloud-based virtual labs, today announced that it was named to the first annual listing of the InformationWeek Startup 50, revealed in the April 20th edition of InformationWeek Magazine and on InformationWeek.com. Skytap was one of only a handful of cloud computing vendors named to this prestigious list. The company was honored based on the innovation of its Virtual Lab platform and the solution’s ability to dramatically lower costs and provide on-demand computing for today’s enterprises.
“We’re honored that InformationWeek has recognized Skytap twice in less than a year, after having been recognized as a ‘must-know’ cloud computing startup last Fall,” said Scott Roza, CEO of Skytap. “Our Virtual Lab platform continues to prove its value to enterprise customers by driving down IT lab costs by 50 percent or more and increasing the flexibility and scalability of their IT operations.”
Skytap’s unique value is that it helps companies realize the benefit of “cloudonomics” by migrating costly and underutilized environments, such as those used for application development and testing, IT operations, sales demos and training, to the cloud. Skytap’s Virtual Lab platform allows companies to take their existing applications, virtual machines and systems and run them unchanged on industry-standard platforms on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis. This approach provides a low-risk adoption path to cloud computing, and delivers the highest level of ROI as these dynamic environments fluctuate dramatically and are costly to manage.
InformationWeek’s Startup 50 is a list of the top 50 business technology startups selected by InformationWeek readers and editors. Companies were selected in a three-step process that involved nomination, online voting, and editorial vetting. The technologies and the companies behind them were evaluated on the following criteria: – Innovation and their ability to inject new ways of doing things into business processes – Value, which is reflected in lower costs, increased sales, higher productivity, or improved customer loyalty – Enterprise-readiness, meaning that a product or service scales and can be deployed and managed as necessary by IT pros.
“It was difficult to limit ourselves to 50 startups because there’s a lot of exciting companies out there,” said Andrew Conry-Murray, Business Editor, InformationWeek. “That said, we believe the InformationWeek Startup 50 have innovative solutions to critical business problems and are worthy of enterprise consideration.”
InformationWeek editors and readers identified young companies that are ready to address the critical challenges facing the enterprise. Whether it is securing networks, cutting costs or streamlining IT operations and business processes, the InformationWeek Startup 50 provides IT professionals and executives insight on new and innovative solutions from the named companies.
The full list of the InformationWeek Startup 50: Business Technology Companies To Watch, along with analysis by InformationWeek editors, can be found online at http://www.informationweek.com/news/services/saas/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216600068.
About InformationWeek
InformationWeek (www.informationweek.com) is the anchor brand for the InformationWeek Business Technology Network – a powerful portfolio of resources that span the technology market, including security with DarkReading.com, storage with ByteandSwitch.com, application architecture with IntelligentEnterprise.com, network architecture with NetworkComputing.com, cloud computing with PlugIntoTheCloud.com, and Internet innovation with InternetEvolution.com. InformationWeek magazine reaches 440,000 business technology professionals at more than a quarter million unique locations. Its mission is to help CIOs and IT executives define and frame their business technology objectives. InformationWeek.com delivers breaking news, blogs, high-impact image galleries, and proprietary research as well as analysis on IT trends, a whitepaper library, video reports, and interactive tools, all in a 24/7 environment.
About TechWeb
TechWeb (http://www.techweb.com/home), the global leader in business technology media, is an innovative business focused on serving the needs of technology decision-makers and marketers worldwide. TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed media brands in the business technology market. Today, more than 13.3 million* business technology professionals actively engage in our communities created around our global face-to-face events such as Interop, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Black Hat and VoiceCon; online resources such as Informationweek.com, Light Reading, Intelligent Enterprise, bMighty.com, and the Financial Technology Network; and the market leading, award-winning InformationWeek, TechNet Magazine, MSDN Magazine, and Wall Street & Technology magazines. TechWeb also provides end-to-end services ranging from next-generation performance marketing, integrated media, market research, and analyst services. TechWeb is a division of United Business Media, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.
*13.3 million business decision-makers: based on # of monthly connections across TechWeb brands.
