EAST GREENBUSH, NY -- (Marketwire) -- 11/06/09 -- Autotask Corporation, the Cloud-based IT service management pioneer, today released details of its October new customer acquisition activity indicating that the IT Services community may be seeing a market upturn.

According to statistics compiled by the company for new business activity for the month of October 2009, more than 300 individual IT Service companies placed new orders or upgrades for Autotask. In addition, the company saw more than 1,000 new seats added to its subscriber base -- an indicator that IT service firms are hiring again.

"October 2009 was a big month for us," said Autotask CEO Bob Godgart, "our biggest for the year, and one of the largest spikes in activity from individual companies. We've seen bigger months when large numbers of new sign-ups come from our strategic relationships with organizations that have chosen Autotask to be their standard or exclusive Professional Service Automation platform. But individual October sales just seemed to be coming from everywhere."

In addition to strong US Sales, Autotask also saw gains coming from 13 countries outside the US. Over 20% of Autotask sales are international.

While the base of Autotask subscribers has been growing sizably every month since the company's start-up in 2001, the rate of growth for both new Autotask sales and seats added to the installed base began to accelerate at the end of the third quarter, and has continued as the fourth quarter kicks off.

Company officials believe the increase in business activity is due, in part, to Autotask partners' rapid adoption of Taskfire® -- a cloud-based service desk that Autotask service providers can resell to their clients with internal IT resources. In October, Autotask saw 18.5% growth in the number of Authorized Taskfire Partners and a record number of new Taskfire installations.

"Taskfire is driving new business for our partners," explains Bob Godgart. "Our partners are successfully using it to provide a new type of service to larger clients that have their own IT resources."

Based on the existing pipeline of new deals, customer interviews and a tripling in the number of Taskfire trials out in the marketplace, Autotask Corporation is projecting that the balance of Q4 will continue to be strong, an indicator that the IT services sector in general is on the rebound.

About Autotask Corporation

Autotask is the No. 1 IT business management platform offering a better way to sell, deliver, and manage a portfolio of IT services. Delivered through a robust cloud-based infrastructure and accessible from literally any PC connected to the internet, Autotask gives an IT service business access to and control over all critical business processes.

Service providers use the Autotask platform internally to manage their contacts, sales opportunities, contracts, projects, service tickets, to-dos, notes, time entries, expenses, inventory, invoices and reports. Autotask also offers a powerful interface to manage outsourced work, collaborate with clients, and network online with peers.

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