Spiceworks Upgrades Free IT Management Software With Support for IT Teams and Solution Providers

March 12, 2007; 08:36 AM
Spiceworks, Inc., the provider of the industry’s first free ad-supported IT management software, today announced the availability of version 1.5 of the Spiceworks IT Desktop, which includes several major feature enhancements that help both small- and medium-size organizations and IT solution providers better manage their networks. Key new capabilities available in the latest version include support for multi-person IT teams, employee help desk submissions, and the ability for IT managers to collaborate within the Spiceworks community to help solve IT problems. In addition to the new product features, Spiceworks announced it has doubled its user base from 30,000 to more than 60,000 small and midsize businesses and organizations in just two months, making it the fastest-growing IT management software product in history.

“All of our 25 small and midsize clients need IT management software but until now it was cost prohibitive for them to buy their own,” said Paul Berndt of Jenux Technologies, Inc. “With Spiceworks that’s all changed. The software allows us to keep tabs on our clients’ networks, respond to employee-submitted trouble tickets and deliver a superior level of service – all without any additional resource expenditures or application licensing fees.”

The Spiceworks IT Desktop is designed for small and medium organizations with networks of up to 250 devices. Core product features include the ability to automatically discover, inventory, monitor, track and report on the hardware and software running in a network as well as help desk and IT expert community collaboration capabilities. The latest new features in the most recent release include:

• IT Team Support – allows multiple members of an internal or service provider IT team to use the Spiceworks IT Desktop simultaneously. They can manage team logins from a single interface, assign Help Desk tickets to individual members, and create individual team profiles in the Spiceworks community.
• IT Community Wiki and Discussion Forums – with Spiceworks Projects, SMB IT managers can now collaborate with each other on topics such as rolling out a VoIP network, securing their wireless network and upgrading to Windows Vista through the Spiceworks IT wiki and discussion forum. This lets them share best practices with other people in similar-size organizations.
• Employee Help Desk Submission –enables any employee within an organization to submit trouble tickets to their IT manager or service provider through email or a simple web page. IT managers automatically receive the help requests and can open, respond to, and track the tickets through one simple, integrated interface. The Spiceworks software also automatically associates the ticket with the end-user’s machine, saving time looking up related hardware & software configuration information.
• Manual Asset Tracking – provides the ability for IT managers to find and keep tabs on any asset in the network beyond the hardware and software assets that Spiceworks automatically discovers. This includes PDAs, cell phones, copy machines and even office furniture – all with an easy-to-use Web 2.0 interface.

A variety of organizations, including systems integrators, government agencies, businesses, manufacturers, educational institutions and non-profits are currently using Spiceworks software to manage software and hardware devices across multiple operating systems and platforms. The Spiceworks software is supported by displaying relevant ads on topics that are useful to IT professionals.

“Our mission is to simplify technology management for SMBs and solution providers by helping them to easily find, organize and manage all the information they need to do their jobs,” said Scott Abel, founder and CEO of Spiceworks. “By letting our users vote on the new features they would like to see in the product, we’re confident that each new release of Spiceworks goes a step further toward meeting this goal and helping serve the unique needs of the 2 million SMB IT professionals worldwide.”

For more information on Spiceworks or to download the free Spiceworks IT Desktop software, visit www.spiceworks.com.

About Spiceworks

Founded by network and systems management software pioneers, Spiceworks develops the industry’s first free IT management software designed to meet the unique needs of small and medium businesses. Spiceworks software helps organizations easily inventory, monitor, manage and troubleshoot the software and hardware assets in their networks. Spiceworks is a privately held company headquartered in Austin, Texas with funding from Austin Ventures. For more information visit www.spiceworks.com.

Spiceworks is a trademark of Spiceworks, Inc. All other names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.