Spiceworks (News - Alert) has announced the availability of the Spiceworks IT Desktop version 3.0, a free collaborative IT management application for small and medium businesses.

 

The Spiceworks IT Desktop is optimized for small and medium organizations with computer networks of up to 250 devices, according to the company. Spiceworks users have access to a free IT management application that allows them to automatically discover, inventory, monitor, track, report on, troubleshoot and repair the hardware and software running in a network. In addition, it also provides a built-in help desk, remote control capability.

 

The updated version, company’s officials said, is equipped with the ability to inventory SaaS (News - Alert) services such as online back-up and e-mail hosting. Additionally, it also has the ability to share IT reports among users, and flip through their network inventory in a manner similar to consumer applications via a new user interface called Network Glide.

 

Officials said that the new inventory feature enable tracking of inventory items such as service costs, related contract dates, help desk tickets, outages, contact information, documents and relevant news.

 

While the new Network Glide feature allows users to flip through and view network devices, applications and services with a single click. Officials pointed out that this not only makes navigation easier but allows IT managers to view more aspects of their networks in a single glance.

 

Additional features like IT services activity feeds allows the history of IT services to be viewed in an activity stream similar to a social networking application news feed, and via report sharing, users can create customized reports and share them with other IT managers within the Spiceworks community.

 

This version also comes with Microsoft (News - Alert) exchange monitoring which allows users to monitor their Microsoft Exchange server for up-time status, load, and mailbox capacity usage. In addition, officials said it integrates the Spiceworks help desk email functions with Microsoft Exchange.

 

Also, now users can leverage Active Directory for authentication and administration of the end-user help desk portal included in Spiceworks, and the option of third-party tool integration enables users to launch and view other network and systems management tools from within the Spiceworks user interface.

 

“Thanks to the help of more than 2,500 users participating in our beta program, we believe this latest release of the Spiceworks IT Desktop is our best yet,” remarked Scott Abel, co-founder and CEO of Spiceworks, Inc.

He also said that the application’s crowdsourcing capabilities not only help IT pros get the new features they want, but also allow them to collaborate with others to simplify their day-to-day jobs.

 

Spiceworks IT Desktop, according to the company, is the “first to embed community crowdsourcing and collaboration features” directly into an IT management application.