Several weeks ago a company called MyWebAlert said they would monitor your website free of charge. All you had to do was sign up. Well I have and am expecting the first reports on how IT Week's website has performed soon. Meanwhile, a couple of weeks ago a company called Spiceworks launched version 1.5 of their network management package which is also free. Of course 'free' does not necessarily mean 'good', so I've installed in IT Week's Labs and I'm currently in the process of 'kicking the tyres'. The program is 'ads sponsored' which means 15 percent of the screen, on the right hand side, is basically a billboard for targeted adverts aimed primarily at IT staff.

Install is easy and the program has a quality feel to it. The Spiceworks Community is quite active with nearly 600 feature requests already logged. Looking through some of the posts, there's quite a few network admins 'kicking the tyres' as well. A fair few of the posts are informative, as well as highly amusing. One person appears to have accidentally let the program loose on a production system and ended up being grilled by the execs after the program started turning systems on that had been shut down. There but for the grace of God …

Spiceworks say there's no restrictions on usage except that they've specifically targeted SMEs with networks with up to 250 devices. Probably the main new feature in release 1.5 is the ability to set up an employee help desk using the system, but this would need real thought and testing before letting loose on a production system. I suppose the main question IT managers need to think about before deciding on a full blown rollout after initial trials, is the long term viability of Spiceworks' 'ads sponsored' software model. Google don't seem to be doing too badly with their model though.