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iPaaS

The Jitterbit Story – Then and Now

Jitterbit story

How the Story Began

Jitterbit was founded by a small group of Berkeley-trained software engineers with the goal of democratizing data integration. Their vision was to develop a platform that was easy to use and quick to deploy. Their strategy was to get the platform into the hands of as many people as possible. One of the founders was Sharam Sasson who became CEO. Sasson is well-known in the technology industry, along with his brother Ori, as the founders of Scopus Technology and Primera Capital. In their careers, the Sasson brothers have chaired or founded many pioneering companies. Today’s Jitterbit is a realization of their vision.

What’s in a Name

The name Jitterbit itself had its genesis in the idea that movement is more valuable and attractive when coordinated among individuals acting in concert. The first part of the name “Jitter” comes from a fast dance popular in the 1940s, where two dancers performed a series of athletic moves not unlike rock-and-roll dancing. Known as the Jitterbug, the last part of the name of the dance was not appropriate for software distinguished by having movement but not “bugs.” The word bug was consequently changed to “bit” – the smallest unit of measurement of computer data.

The Humble Beginnings

Jitterbit was an early adopter of Salesforce and had hands on experience using the product. The company leadership, analyzing data usage patterns, soon realized a majority of their active users were trying to connect with instances of Salesforce in the cloud and saw an opportunity. Based on the company’s own experience, the leadership realized that most of their potential customers would not be highly technical. The majority would be Salesforce admins and not programmers. Jitterbit product managers worked closely with Salesforce product managers to create a Data Loader to address their needs, which has been widely adopted for internal use by Salesforce.com itself. To seed the market, Jitterbit launched its freemium Data Loader for Salesforce on the AppExchange. Since then, both the freemium and paid versions of Jitterbit Harmony Enterprise iPaaS product has been downloaded over 61,000 times.

The Evolution to Becoming a Repeat Winner

In 2011, Sasson tapped George Gallegos to be Jitterbit’s new CEO. A seasoned industry executive, Gallegos was part of the senior leadership team of a similar company, Cast Iron Systems, which was sold to IBM. Since then, Jitterbit has grown to over 220 employees around the world.

The company has attracted investments from Autodesk, KKR, Salesforce.com, and Samsung Ventures as well as from the Sassons’ own Primera Capital. The Jitterbit Harmony platform has received recognition as an industry leader from Gartner, Forrester, and G2. The Jitterbit services organization has received a Stevie award for its outstanding customer service.

The company has expanded beyond its initial market to become a trusted partner of Epicor, NetSuite, Workday, ServiceNow, and BMC. Today, Jitterbit has thousands of customers across the globe making the democratization of data integration a reality.

Contact us to learn more about how Jitterbit can help your team drive innovation through connectivity.

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