You may have heard that Spiceworks Ziff Davis (SWZD) has acquired Aberdeen, a leading global provider of behavioral-based marketing solutions and research. As the SWZD and Aberdeen teams begin to work as one entity, it is important to us that we remain transparent with you, our Community. We're very excited about this next step in an ongoing strategy that emphasizes the opportunity to showcase our data-driven solutions that will ultimately reshape the tech playbook.

What a year 2020 has been! We’re all living through a shared experience, where everyone has been forced to navigate challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. And in this new reality, far-reaching changes have been made to ensure public safety, some of which will continue well into the future. For example, amid the lockdowns and reduced economic activity, businesses were forced to take cost cutting measures to survive.

The COVID-19 crisis is everywhere and affecting everyone, especially IT professionals. During this time of the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, like many other enterprises around the world, Spiceworks Ziff Davis has also made work-from-home (WFH) mandatory for all employees globally. While this ensures the protection of our employees, it has caused great disruption because not every team was set up for immediate and effective remote work.

In a world where organizations store and process more data with each passing year, technology has evolved to keep pace. For example, hard drive capacities have increased steadily and adoption of scalable cloud storage platforms has headed skyward. At the same time, storage vendors have introduced solutions to accelerate storage read and write times — which have historically been a bottleneck in computing.

There's no doubt that over the last decade, virtualization technology drastically altered server rooms around the world. Server virtualization has improved IT efficiency while allowing for greater flexibility and redundancy, quickly jumping from a niche technology to one that's used by the vast majority of businesses. With server virtualization now ubiquitous, many businesses are now turning to other forms of virtualization to reap similar IT benefits.

Over the years, online communications have evolved, increasingly making it easier for businesses to connect. Thanks to the internet, companies of all sizes can now benefit from real-time, high-quality voice chat technology, screen sharing, video conferencing, and more. And these apps have changed the way we work, allowing coworkers to collaborate whether they're in the same building or half a world away.