New Network Glide user interface and IT services feeds continue consumerization of IT for SMBs Interop Las Vegas 2008.

Spiceworks Inc., today during a presentation at Software 2008, an event showcasing innovative software companies at the Interop conference,   announced the third generation of its free, ad-supported Spiceworks IT Desktop application, which is designed to meet the IT and network management needs of small and medium businesses. It states that the 3.0 version includes a new user interface called Network Glide, which lets IT professionals rapidly flip through their network inventory in a manner similar to popular consumer applications. In addition, Spiceworks added the ability to inventory SaaS services, extended the popular activity feeds to IT services to track changes, and added support for Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory.

The company avers that its IT Desktop is designed for small and medium organizations with computer networks of up to 250 devices. The 325,000 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 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, adds the company.

"Spiceworks continues to combine the best aspects of consumer applications and powerful IT management software with the largest community of small business IT pros working together to help each other get their jobs done," said KoKo Washington, I.T. Support Specialist, DATAprose, Inc. "It's paying off by making it easier for small business IT managers like me to run our networks more smoothly."

"We continue to take the best ideas from the consumer web – like free ad-supported business models, Web 2.0 collaboration, ease-of-use, and great UIs – and bring them to business applications," said Scott Abel, co-founder and CEO of Spiceworks, Inc. "This latest version of the Spiceworks IT Desktop revolutionizes the way people interact with their networks and with other IT pros. And we believe it helps us to continue to achieve our goal of empowering small business IT managers to make their jobs easier."