Shavlik's roots were in providing consulting services to help organizations make the leap to Microsoft OS's and contributed to them delivering products on NT.

One of the central challenges in addressing the problem was that companies did not have an easy way to determine which machines were out of date and they did not have a methodology to deploy updates.

In an effort to address the "hot fix"issue, Shavlik built the first agentless patch scanner for Windows NT.

In the aftermath of the SQL Slammer worm and after a series of other highly publicized exploits hit in 2003/2004, Shavlik made the decision to move away from consulting and to fully invest in software development for patch management products.

This project was the first in a series of partnerships Shavlik entered into with VMware, and the capability meant that Protect could agentlessly patch machines in both physical and virtual environments.

This Software as a Service (SaaS) application simplified the workflow for inventory and systems patching than was possible with the on-premises, Protect solution.

In early 2009, Shavlik formed an OEM partnership with VMware to build a cloud-based application designed to help IT administrators in smaller businesses deploy a virtual environment.

VMware Go (vGo) was intended to be an "onramp to virtualization," serving smaller customers until they were ready to upgrade to the more sophisticated vCenter suite.

VMware and Shavlik invested heavily in vGo, and the product was expanded to include asset inventory, patch scanning, and an IT advisor recommendation engine.

Later in attempts to monetize vGo's services, a paid version called VMware Go Pro introduced patch deployment.

[12] In January 2013, VMware announced its intent to "sharpen its focus" on the software-defined data center and hybrid cloud services.

[13] As part of this realignment, VMware sought to sell off products that weren't contributing to its core business such as its SlideRocket presentation software and other "non-key cloud and virtualization technologies.

In early 2017, Clearlake Capital acquired LANDesk and Shavlik, along with Heat Software, Appsense and Wavelink; the combined company uses a new corporate name and product brand, Ivanti.