This week’s NetworkWorld includes an article about SpiceWorks’ new, free, desktop management solution. The on-demand service enables IT professionals to manage up to 250 devices. The company claims the free solution includes discover, inventory, monitoring, tracking, reporting and remote hardware and software problem resolution capabilities.

Giving away free IT/network management solutions isn’t a new idea. This is the same thing a company called VitalSigns did in the application performance management space a decade ago to penetrate the market before the company I was a part of, International Network Services (INS), acquired it to enhance our network performance management service called EnterprisePRO.

More recently, Klir Technologies has been using this same strategy to penetrate the market with its on-demand network performance management solution.

The broader trend is that IT professionals are becoming increasingly receptive to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and managed service ‘out-tasking’ alternatives to traditional network/system management (NSM) systems. Although IT people have been resistant to SaaS and managed services in the past, they are increasingly frustrated with traditional, on-premise management platforms. They also recognize that their jobs are in jeopardy if they can’t produce better IT/network availability, security and performance.

You can find my perspectives on this topic in NetworkWorld and the June issue of Business Communications Review. You can also find a listing of the latest on-demand solutions aimed at IT professionals on THINKstrategies’ SaaS and Managed Services Showplaces.