High Technology Product Reviews | Trends and News

Affordable, feature-rich, and easy to use small and mid-sized business network management applications are hard to find, but they do exist. Case in point: The free Spiceworks, which has enjoyed popularity in the SMB network management crowd thanks to its vendor independence and ease of use. Cisco's Network Magic does a lot of what Spiceworks does, but we found it worked a bit buggy with non-Cisco networking products. More than a tool, Spiceworks is a portal comprised of network management, help desk, purchasing features, and a community of over 1,000,000 helpful users—mostly IT professionals—deemed "Spiceheads." The software is as useful as ever, but it's hampered a bit by new features that could've used more time in the oven. Specifications Type Business, Enterprise, Professional Free Yes OS Compatibility Windows Vista, Windows XP, Linux, Windows 7 Interface and Setup Spiceworks' interface has been updated since we last took a look at it. The Device