Spiceworks 4.0 Free IT Management Software Released
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Spiceworks may sound like the name of an adult channel, but it’s actually free network monitoring software. The Austin, Texas-based company was founded in 2006 by Scott Abel, Jay Hallberg, Greg Kattawar, and Francis Sullivan. The company just released some new software to make the jobs of network administrators easier. In this article we'll take a look at what it offers.
Spiceworks' IT Desktop was designed for network administrators working in medium-sized businesses. Some of the free services it offers include the ability to inventory your network and PCs, monitor and manage your network, manage your IT assets, changes, and configurations, audit your software, troubleshoot your network, run an IT help desk, and communicate with IT pros whenever, wherever. According to the site, the Spiceworks IT community is powered by 700,000 IT professionals all over the world who can answer any questions that may arise while you are working directly in the application.
Spiceworks has a very specific way of doing things, and its main focus is quite specific as well. The company's software is incredibly zeroed-in on a precise market, which is companies with 100 or fewer employees. Some of the most negative feedback Spiceworks gets is a direct result of their focus on smaller businesses. Essentially, larger, more prominent companies feel that the Spiceworks application does not meet their needs -- and it doesn't appear as if it ever will, as big business has never been a point of interest for the IT company.
As a result of this very specific interest, the content and information in the Spiceworks community is obviously very specialized as well. Thankfully, this environment fits the needs of the countless IT workers that utilize the site, which has essentially been tailored for them. The Spiceworks application is directly tied to this information as well. Instead of going to a search engine and spending hours looking up data, culling out duplicate hits, etc, etc, it is now all available directly where users need it the most - which is in a Spiceworks app that users can download for free and use to manage their network.
The last time Spiceworks updated their software was in January of 2009, when they released their Spiceworks IT Desktop version 3.5. This version added support for up to 500 devices and allowed businesses to prioritize and customize scans of their networks at the subnet level, use an integrated SQL editor to generate graphical reports, and share widgets and reports with the Spiceworks community.
The company that helps you manage "everything IT" has been receiving a lot of publicity lately because the latest version of their Spiceworks IT Desktop was released Friday, June 19 th. Spiceworks 4.0 will do everything its last version could do, but better -- of course. It also comes jam-packed with a number of cool new features, many of which focus on social networking tools. Let's take a look at some of Spiceworks new additions.
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