Software Advice is a company that provides advisory services, research, and user reviews on software applications for businesses in over 300 market categories including medical, CRM, HR, construction, business intelligence and marketing automation.[2][3]
Co-founded in 2005 by CEO Don Fornes and Austin Merritt, it has been a subsidiary of Gartner since 2014.[4][5]
Software Advice, Inc., formerly known as River Guide, Inc., was co-founded in 2005 in San Francisco, California by CEO Don Fornes and Austin Merritt, the company's former general manager and COO.[6][4] The company provides advice on different software for buyers in several verticals: construction, medical, retail, property, manufacturing, distribution, electronic health record, CRM, applicant tracking systems, and more.[7][8][9] In 2009, the company's headquarters moved to its current location in Austin, Texas.[10] In March 2014, Software Advice was acquired by Gartner, Inc., a global information technology research and advisory company.[2]
The company announced Blake Clark as its new general manager in November 2018.[11][12]
The company advises buyers on software products via free telephone consultations with software analysts.[2][13] The Software Advice website gives pricing and demo information on individual systems, as well as market reports based on buyer interactions, and detailed reviews and comparisons.[3][14][15] The company's reports have been used as a source of expertise in Forbes,[16][17][18][19] Entrepreneur,[20] Huffington Post,[21] Business Insider,[22] Yelp,[23] Inc.,[24][25] and the Wall Street Journal[26] among others.
Software Advice releases biannual reports to highlight top software products in different categories.[27] Its FrontRunners for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), April 2019 report analyzed the software that companies use to track information such as inventory management, accounting, and customer relationship management.[28] In the report, Software Advice used analyzed data to plot the market’s top ERP products graphically, based on Usability and User Recommended.[28] The other FrontRunners reports also base scores on Usability and User Recommended.[29]
