Spiceworks 7 – getting a handle on mobile devices

“Spiceworks 7 represents a major step forward that’s already streamlining how we manage our entire technology environment,” said Marques Salazar, network administrator at Pathology Consultants, PC. “We’ve embraced the bring-your-own-device trend, so the addition of free mobile device management functionality is a major win for our company. Additionally, the ability to manage our on-premise, cloud and mobile devices all from a single pane of glass makes my life as an IT professional easier.”

Free mobile device management capabilities
According to Spiceworks’ May 2013 report “As BYOD Becomes Mainstream, Complexity Increases for SMBs,” 61 percent of small-to-mid-sized businesses have instituted a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy with broad support for a range of devices and form factors. However, only 37 percent have deployed or plan to deploy a MDM solution to manage those devices.

Through its partnership with Fiberlink and the integration of the company’s MaaS360 offering, over 2.5 million Spiceworks users will now be able to address BYOD and device management challenges for free. This addition will help IT professionals discover mobile devices and applications running on their network, enroll, inventory and monitor individual or groups of devices, and establish custom alerts and reporting.

Additionally, Spiceworks users will be able to upgrade to premium services from MaaS360 for additional mobile security and management capabilities. These include enforcing security policies, configuring devices over-the-air, remote support such as locking devices and resetting passcodes, and distributing applications to individual or groups of devices.

New inventory functionality makes scanning a breeze
Spiceworks 7 also includes updates to its inventory and scanning capabilities to help IT professionals get a full picture of their environment including the computers, servers, routers, switches and applications running on their network. The inventory application lets IT professionals customize their scanning and inventory experiences, and new scanning workflows help IT departments inventory hard-to-decipher devices in an intuitive way that makes the scanning and inventory process easier. These additions allow IT professionals to easily control scanning across very large, complex network environments.

As the adoption of cloud services accelerate among end-user and IT departments, it’s important for IT professionals to understand how adoption is progressing across their organization. Spiceworks 7 also includes new cloud detection features, which help IT professionals understand the cloud services employees are utilizing. Spiceworks 7 allows IT professionals to create customized watch lists to alert them when specific cloud services are being used and by whom.

Updated help desk designed to support larger environments
Spiceworks 7 includes an updated help desk application to help IT departments in large and small organizations more quickly react to end-user requests for support. The new help desk features a significant performance increase, updated aesthetics and the ability for tickets to be updated in real-time by multiple IT professionals working to resolve an issue. These enhancements help IT departments, especially in larger organizations, stay up-to-speed on the tickets and requests their peers are addressing.

“Spiceworks 7 represents a major milestone in the evolution of our IT management platform and in how millions of IT professionals tackle their responsibilities,” said Scott Abel, co-founder and CEO of Spiceworks. “From mobile device management to cloud service detection and everything in between, Spiceworks 7 is designed to make the lives of the IT professional that much easier.”