AUSTIN, USA: Spiceworks Inc. announced the availability of the Spiceworks IT Desktop version 3.0 – the latest release of the industry’s first free collaborative IT management application for small and medium businesses. The 3.0 version includes the ability to inventory SaaS services, share IT reports among users, and rapidly flip through their network inventory in a manner similar to popular consumer applications via a new user interface called Network Glide™. Additional details on these and other new features include:

* SaaS Inventory Management – new inventory features include the ability to track SaaS services – such as online back-up or e-mail hosting – which often account for more than 50 percent of IT spend and are becoming more prevalent as SMBs migrate to “Cloud Computing” services. Inventory items that can be tracked include service costs, related contract dates, help desk tickets, outages, contact information, documents and relevant news.
* Network Glide – the new Network Glide feature allows users to flip through and view network devices, applications and services with a single click. This not only makes navigation easier but allows IT managers to view more aspects of their networks quickly in a single glance.
* 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. This helps the IT manager stay on top of issues with IT services.
* Report Sharing – users can now create customized reports and share them with other IT managers within the Spiceworks community. Users benefit from access to additional out-of-the-box reports customized to the needs of small business IT pros like them.
* Microsoft Exchange Monitoring – allows users to monitor their Microsoft Exchange server for up-time status, load, and mailbox capacity usage. In addition it integrates the Spiceworks help desk email functions with Microsoft Exchange.
* Active Directory Support – users can now leverage Active Directory to simplify the authentication and administration of the end-user help desk portal included in Spiceworks.
* Third-Party Tool Integration – enables users to launch and view other network and systems management tools from within the Spiceworks user interface, making it easier to perform key IT management tasks.

The Spiceworks IT Desktop is optimized for small and medium organizations with computer networks of up to 250 devices. The 350,000 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. It also provides a built-in help desk, remote control capability, and is the first to embed community crowdsourcing and collaboration features directly into an IT management application. The free Spiceworks application is supported by displaying relevant, non-intrusive ads on topics that are useful to IT professionals.

“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,” said Scott Abel, co-founder and CEO of Spiceworks. “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. It’s a great example of how crowdsourcing can work for IT.”

Over 40 top advertisers – including HP, Intel, Rackspace, Microsoft, Brother, Symantec, McAfee, Netgear, Sony and TrendMicro – have experienced success with campaigns to the Spiceworks user community, which now supports over 16 million devices and more than 10 million employees.