MSPs Spice Up Bottom Line With Free Software

Since rolling out its beta in July, IT management software startup Spiceworks has grown the worldwide user base for its free, ad-supported desktop monitoring application to some 60,000 users, several thousand of them North American MSP professionals, said Spiceworks CEO Scott Abel.

The Austin, Texas-based company this week released version 1.5 of Spiceworks IT Desktop, which incorporates several user-driven changes to a product geared toward small business networks of 250 or fewer nodes. These include a new multiuser feature for administrators, end-user-generated trouble tickets, a wiki and discussion forum for client collaboration and trouble-shooting, and asset tracking for assets in a network beyond hardware and software, such as PDAs, cell phones and copy machines.

Paul Berndt, an account manager for Minnetonka, Minn.-based MSP Jenux Technologies, uses Spiceworks IT Desktop to monitor networks for the company's 25 small and midsize clients.

"We use it for doing client-list inventories of workstations," Berndt said. "AdAware gets installed on somebody's machine, and it alerts us to do the work.

"We do have an inventory product that we sell to our bigger clients. We will charge the client $200 to $300 on the paid product versus this free product. The savings get passed onto the client."

One of the new features that Berndt doesn't expect will have much value for Jenux is the new Spiceworks IT wiki and discussion forum.

"I'm an integrator, so I won't use the [wiki and forum] tools," he said.

"It's kind of a double-edged sword. I don't want our competition using this as a product. But I do want to tell our customers that we're saving them money."

Spiceworks has no plans to change the revenue model for its IT Desktop product. "The software's always going to be free," said Abel. But the company is exploring building fee-based value-added services in some areas.

These include remote services and local advertising for MSPs on the IT Desktop interface, Abel said.

Advertisers currently working with Spiceworks include HP, Panda Software, Barracuda, IS3, Rackspace and NetGear, he said.

Abel declined to discuss the company's financial figures.

Version 1.5 of IT Desktop is available for download at www.spiceworks.com .