ServiceNow was founded as Glidesoft, Inc. in 2003 by Fred Luddy, and later incorporated in California in 2004. Luddy had previously served as chief technology officer for Peregrine Systems, an enterprise software company based in San Diego, until 2002. In founding the company, Luddy intended to provide the same services previously available from the then defunct Peregrine Systems. Until mid-2005, Luddy was the only employee and concentrated on developing the software which the company would offer. Then came the first hires, five people, and raising in venture financing from JMI Equity. In 2006, the company changed its name to ServiceNow. In 2007, ServiceNow reported an annual revenue of and opened their first Silicon Valley office, in San Jose. 2007 was also the first year that the company "went cash flow positive". , the company had 275 employees in its San Diego, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, London and Frankfurt offices, as well as a partnership with Accenture who had more than 100 ServiceNow consultants. At this time, the company was known as "Service-now". By April 2011, the company had named Frank Slootman as chief executive officer. In June 2012, ServiceNow became a publicly traded company following a IPO. Shortly thereafter, the company relocated its headquarters from San Diego to Santa Clara, California. It was taken public by Morgan Stanley one month after they took Facebook public. In July 2013, ServiceNow acquired Mirror42, an Amsterdam-based software developer. In February 2015, ServiceNow acquired Intréis. In June 2016, ServiceNow acquired Brightpoint Security. In January 2017, ServiceNow acquired machine learning startup DxContinuum. In October 2017, the company acquired the San Diego human-centered design firm Telepathy, which had been founded in 2001; the acquisition doubled the size of ServiceNow's internal design agency, the Design Experience Organization. In October 2017, ServiceNow acquired SkyGiraffe, In April 2018 ServiceNow acquired VendorHawk, a Software-as-Service-Management Company. In 2019, ServiceNow acquired Appsee Ltd., an analytics startup, that helped developers understand how users interact with their mobile apps. In October 2019, the company announced that CEO John Donahoe would be succeeded by Bill McDermott, formerly CEO of SAP SE at the end of the calendar year. In January 2020, ServiceNow announced its acquisition of Loom Systems and Passage AI. In June 2020, ServiceNow announced its acquisition of Sweagle.
Business model
ServiceNow is a Platform-as-a-service provider, providing technical management support, such as IT service management, to the IT operations of large corporations, including providing help desk functionality. The company's core business revolves around management of "incident, problem, and change" IT operational events. Their fee model was based on a cost per user per month, with that cost ranging down from.
