Survey Says Systems Management Pros Save Time with the Help of Online IT Communities

July 24, 2007; 04:29 AM
KACE, the leading provider of systems management appliances, today announced the results from a new study that reveals online communities help systems management professionals save both time and money by providing a resource to help answer complex systems administration problems. The survey, completed by market research firm King Research, reported that 100 percent of IT professionals who participate in online communities benefit professionally, and another 85 percent said they benefit personally as well.

The research, consisting of an online survey with 203 respondents, was commissioned by KACE to gather data on the use of online communities by IT professionals and to gauge their value. Systems management and application deployment have become more and more complex so finding up-to-date information can be quite time consuming—94 percent of the respondents said they are forced to visit more than one source of information for each problem they set out to solve.

“IT departments have embraced online communities to deal with the time-consuming application deployment issues that plague them everyday,” said Diane Hagglund of King Research. “These communities clearly serve as an important resource to answer questions, share experiences, and communicate with peers who also wear many IT hats. Systems management professionals and the organizations they work for are seeing huge benefits from online communities both in the time saved for the individual or team and therefore money saved for their organizations, with potential for even greater benefits as new functionality is delivered to users.”

Additional key findings include:

• 93 percent of IT professional survey respondents claim that they do their jobs more efficiently and save time by using IT communities to solve system administration problems.
• 94 percent indicated they have to visit more than one source of information for each problem they solve.
• 75 percent said a comprehensive community that would answer questions without the need to visit multiple sites would be beneficial.
• 82 percent save at least one hour a week by using the information found in online communities.
• 3 or more hours were saved weekly by over one-third of the respondents.
• Almost all participants, 98%, reported they believe the information from online communities is typically accurate and trustworthy.
• 70 percent of respondents participate in online communities focused on systems or security management as part of their job.

Understanding that IT professionals deal with these complex systems management issues and challenges everyday, KACE announced its own online community innovation for systems administrators: AppDeploy Live which is embedded in to KACE’s KBOX family of appliances. AppDeploy Live builds off the popular AppDeploy.com community that boasts over 100,000 monthly visitors and offers a broad knowledge base continually updated by over 16,000 contributing professionals, giving computer system manager’s safe and reliable access to data on over 60,000 applications and processes.

“Online communities are quickly becoming the ‘go to’ source for systems management questions,” said Rob Meinhardt, CEO of KACE. “Gone are the days of frustrating searches through vendor sites, discussion boards, and technical publications. Systems management today needs answers quickly from a reputable, easy-to-find resource and online communities deliver these benefits systems administrators. KACE is helping to save these administrators more time by integrating the AppDeploy community directly with the systems management appliance.”

The full community report is available at: www.kace.com/pdf/KingResearch_The_Value_of_Online_Communities.pdf

Survey Methodology

An independent database of IT professionals from small, mid-sized, and large organizations were emailed and invited to participate in the Web survey in June 2007. The 203 participants were not compensated for participation, and represented a wide range of IT functions including hands-on professionals, team managers, and business owners with many participants indicating they had multiple roles within their organization.

About KACE™

KACE™ is the leading systems management appliance company. The award winning KBOX™ family of appliances delivers easy-to-use, comprehensive systems management capabilities. KACE customers usually install in one day at one third the cost of software alternatives.

KACE is headquartered in Mountain View, California. To learn more about KACE and its product offerings, please visit http://www.kace.com or call 1-888-522-3638.