You should definitely add ConfigMgr 2007 to your short list.
Much cheaper than Altiris. Altiris may seem inexpensive to start out, but just like LANDesk and others, it gets pretty expensive the more you add to the product. ConfigMgr 2007 has it all built in (i.e., you don't have to purchase more add-ons to make it work). ConfigMgr 2007 also deploys non-MS patches and you can deploy anything else you want, too. Plus, there's a huge ConfigMgr 2007 community over at myITforum.com that can help you 24x7. Those other products don't have that. Altiris will tell you that they have their Juice community - but it's not as active and the Altiris folks don't monitor it. At myITforum.com you can generally get an answer to question in minutes, sometimes from a product manager at Microsoft. From: Devin Meade [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 4:04 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Altirs Client Management Suite Anyone using Altiris Client Management Suite? Its now a symantec product (strike one). I have been playing around with it and its much less intuitive that WSUS3 for MS patching (strike 2). It seems that to deploy non-MS patches, I have to create a custom package. Compared to shavlik or landesk I can just check a box -- it's much more complicated to patch adobe reader or flash etc.. That's just my take after about a day of screwing around with this piece of garbage. It seems like I will spend more time working around the inefficiencies of this product than it would save me time. It has a definite "NT3.51 feel"... Oh and I can't get the remote control agent to do ANYTHING, sheesh. -Devin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
