I received an email from a vendor the other day, asking me to pass along information about their client management tools. I didn't sent it, since that tends to open Pandora's Box and give everyone justification to ask me to forward countless emails to districts.
At any rate, the whole conversation made me think about the low-cost or no-cost tools that our KETS vendors have today that might assist districts with management of clients. Our school districts spend millions of dollars on computer replacement and, when asked about the value of KETS contracts, the low cost is immediately mentioned. I would encourage districts to take advantage of your vendor relationships and ask about or take advantage of free tools that they may offer.
A couple of these vendors have a 'free' version of a management product and a more elaborate fee-based version. It appears that both Dell and HP have partnered with Altiris to have client management tools built for their products. Lenovo has a ThinkVantage suite of tools, some of which (like Rescue and Recovery) are included with new systems at no charge.
Bottom line: If you are interested and you don't know what's available, ask your vendor of choice and use your leverage to make them a true partner in what you're trying to accomplish.
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2 comments:
But what about Novell's ZENWorks? (Sorry, just couldn't resist)
Jeff
**sigh**
C'mon, Jeff, I was focused on the existing KETS hardware vendors. :) Novell's ZENWorks and Microsoft's SCCM can perform many tasks that districts use other third-party software to accomplish.
I also know that some of the "basic" hardware vendor client packages I blogged about are free, and I've had at least one district ask about remote BIOS updates for machines, which some of those tools can accomplish.
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