Details of the study are as follows:

What:

Availability of updated research and white paper, titled "Best Practices in Lifecycle Management: Comparing KACE, Altiris, LANDesk, and Microsoft SCCM," prepared by leading IT analyst firm EMA.

Why:

The purpose of the study is to explain best practices in lifecycle management, as it relates to desktops and servers, and compares KACE with Altiris, LANDesk, and Microsoft SCCM to determine best overall value specifically for mid-sized businesses.

Where:

The white paper is available for complimentary download at: http://www.kace.com/resources/analyst-reports/ Best-Practices-Lifecycle-Management (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field.Remove the extra space if one exists.)

KACE saves its customers both time and money. Systems managers from medium enterprises are often forced to wear many hats throughout the day to work on a myriad of IT functions. KACE helps consolidate these functions by providing a single appliance for all projects, while delivering easy-to-use, comprehensive systems management that is affordable. The KBOX family of appliances fulfills all of the systems management needs of a medium enterprise, from initial computer deployment to ongoing management and retirement.

About KACE(TM)

KACE(TM) is the leading systems management appliance company. The award-winning KBOX(TM) family of appliances delivers easy-to-use, comprehensive systems management capabilities. KACE customers usually install in one day and enjoy the lowest total cost compared to software alternatives.

KACE is headquartered in Mountain View, California. To learn more about KACE and its product offerings, please visit http://www.kace.com or call 1-877-MGMT-DONE.

Helpful Links

-- KBOX Systems Management Appliances (http://www.kace.com/products/kbox1000.php)

-- KBOX Systems Deployment Appliances (http://www.kace.com/products/kbox2000.php)

-- Virtual KBOX Appliances (http://www.kace.com/V-KBOX)

SOURCE: KACE

Kulesa PR 
Cathy Wright, 650-340-1985 
cathy@kulesapr.com

Other major software vendors have previously promoted interoperability but have either architected monolithic platforms or collaborated within a specific vertical market. Symantec differs with the Open Collaborative Architecture by using existing technologies that are a part of the Symantec portfolio to build on customers' existing IT investments so that a wholesale replacement of the existing infrastructure is not required.

"IT organizations often have the right people, tools and best practices in place but lack the resources to connect them in a way that provides business value," said Brad Kingsbury, senior vice president, Endpoint Security and Management, Symantec. "Through the Open Collaborative Architecture, Symantec is uniquely positioned to help our customers have confidence in how they implement their products by integrating best-of-breed technologies and capabilities across our product portfolio. The Open Collaborative Architecture allows the IT industry to move beyond discreet management boundaries into an area of collaboration."

The Symantec Management Platform -- a core technology of the Open Collaborative Architecture -- leverages the current Altiris infrastructure, technology and model to rapidly deliver integration in order to react to customers' changing needs, regardless of the technology stack. Symantec has already leveraged the platform to integrate technologies from some of its key products, including Symantec Endpoint Protection, Backup Exec System Recovery, Veritas Configuration Manager and Data Loss Prevention.

Third-party solutions can also be integrated on the platform to help reduce the overall costs of managing and supporting multi-discipline, multi-platform and multi-vendor IT solutions. As new technology issues arise that are outside of Symantec's area of focus, such as network management, third-party products that solve these problems can be integrated into the platform and offered to customers quickly to ensure that information, infrastructure and processes are protected completely, managed easily and controlled automatically. Symantec is using the platform to adapt to customers' most pressing requirements for business alignment, cost reduction, improved IT service, enhanced end-user experience and proactive security.

"With increasing security threats and the need to protect corporate information, IT organizations continue to add solutions to secure, manage and backup their infrastructures," said Fred Broussard, research director in the Systems Infrastructure Software group at IDC. "The result is a multitude of management consoles, agent components, storage and database requirements that pose training, management and support challenges. Getting these solutions to integrate takes considerable time and energy and the resulting output may still not satisfy IT requirements. Architectures that streamline and integrate processes, such as the Symantec Open Collaborative Architecture, help solve this problem by simplifying management in a complex world."

Dell to Standardize on Symantec Management Platform

As a major initiative related to the Symantec Open Collaborative Architecture, Dell is working to standardize its systems management offerings for all Dell enterprise class machines on the Symantec Management Platform by early 2009. Dell's adoption of the management platform as the foundation for its flagship enterprise management console further substantiates the value of the Open Collaborative Architecture and its value to the companies' joint customers. Going forward, Symantec and Dell are aggressively building out a comprehensive roadmap to use the platform in Dell systems such as Dell PowerEdge(TM) servers and blades, Dell Latitude(TM) Laptops, Dell Precision(TM) Workstations and Dell OptiPlex(TM) Desktops.

"With the Dell Management Console as a modular plug-in to the Symantec Management Platform, we will be able to offer one of the most simple, flexible, cost-effective ways for our customers to backup, secure and manage enterprise data," said Sally Stevens, director of product marketing at Dell. "We will offer customers a single view to manage all of their computing resources without additional infrastructure. Using the Open Collaborative Architecture will let us simplify IT so customers improve productivity and reduce management costs."

Symantec Introduces Symantec Developer Program

The new Symantec Developer Program opens up the Symantec Management Platform to third-party products and technologies. The subscription-based developer program provides products, support services and developer communities to help Symantec customers, partners and third-party developers leverage and extend the Symantec Management Platform. To date, more than 60 commercial partners have successfully created products that are integrated with the platform, including the following new partners:

-- Bit9 -- offers trust-based adaptive application whitelisting allowing IT to better manage and protect enterprise environments. The addition of this capability to Symantec's portfolio allows customers to automate the creation of application whitelists. Bit9's integrated offering is available now.

-- Dorado Software -- heterogeneous network and service management offers visibility into and control of IT infrastructure while complementing Symantec's endpoint management increasing overall Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) compliance. Dorado Software's integrated offering enables Symantec's customers to manage datacenter network infrastructure and services from one console and is scheduled to be available in November.

-- Savant Protection -- application whitelisting and software verification that complements base antivirus offerings by preventing unauthorized applications from running. Savant's technology controls the execution of applications by establishing a unique key, or signature, for each application and device. Savant Protection's integrated offering is currently under development.

The Symantec Developer Program includes compatibility testing to insure interoperability and the Symantec verification logos that are used to promote tested and approved solutions and their interoperability with all other solutions built upon the platform. Additionally, the Developer Program offers the Symantec Developer Portal as a central resource for the latest software development kits (SDKs) and documentation updates, a developer-oriented discussion forum, a library of frequently asked questions and supplemental sample code.

"The Symantec Developer Program opens the Symantec Management Platform to us and our customers and encourages all to take advantage of the Open Collaborative Architecture for rapid development of new, robust management solutions," said Tim Sebring, CEO of Dorado Software. "This program helps us get the most out of our Platform investment by providing us with the ability to develop our own solutions natively integrated with Symantec and, in the process, offer verified solutions to the rest of the world."

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help businesses and consumers secure and manage their information. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in more than 40 countries. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

NOTE TO EDITORS: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, please visit the Symantec News Room at http://www.symantec.com/news. All prices noted are in U.S. dollars and are valid only in the United States.

Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

This forward-looking indication of plans for products is preliminary and all future release dates are tentative and are subject to change. Any future release of the product or planned modifications to product capability, functionality or feature are subject to ongoing evaluation by Symantec, and may or may not be implemented and should not be considered firm commitments by Symantec and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.

Spencer Parkinson
Symantec Corp.
801-995-7743
spencer_parkinson@symantec.com

Mike Bradshaw
Connect PR for Symantec
801-373-7888
mikeb@connectpr.com

SOURCE: Symantec

mailto:spencer_parkinson@symantec.com
mailto:mikeb@connectpr.com

The Surgient Virtual Automation Platform 6.0 reduces the burden on corporate IT departments by letting individual business units and users manage the reservation, configuration and deployment of virtual infrastructures needed to complete both simple and complex tasks. Surgient's solution is used by application development teams to configure virtual labs for application testing, by sales teams to prepare software demonstrations, and by HR and training teams to aid in internal and external software training.

Surgient 6.0 now features a powerful new interface, post-deployment action, Microsoft Active Directory support and IBM Rational BuildForge integration, providing users with the industry's most robust self-service virtualization automation and lab management platform for delivering customized computing environments on-demand.

"With an increasing demand for infrastructure used for testing, training, and sales demonstrations, we needed a more cost effective, less time consuming process to provide the infrastructure needed by all of our business constituents," said Leif Peterson, CIO at QAD. "The Surgient Platform with the QA/Test Solution, Training Solution and Demo Solution enables us to maximize infrastructure utilization while simplifying and finding economies of scale across the organization."

"Surgient provides its customers with a unique policy-driven self-service approach that enables users to reserve, provision and access computing environments on their own schedules," said Tim Lucas, president and CEO, Surgient. "Our successful experience with large scale deployments continues to validate the value of Surgient to IT. Surgient builds upon this rich heritage of self-service and enterprise scalability by productizing key features requested by our existing Fortune 2000 user base. With support for Microsoft's Hyper-V platform, we are providing a broader, heterogeneous framework for enterprises to benefit from the cost-savings and management advantages that virtualization provides."

"Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is already delivering real business benefits to customers, and one of the reasons is that third-party solutions providers such as Surgient are providing solutions for the platform," said David Greschler, director of integrated virtualization strategy, Microsoft Corp. "Surgient and Microsoft have a long history of collaborating on the best ways that virtualization technology can provide strategic benefits to IT across test and development scenarios, as well as broader initiatives."

Surgient will demonstrate its new offering at two upcoming industry events. The company is a silver sponsor of the Microsoft Get Virtual Now launch event on September 8 in Bellevue, Wash. In addition, Surgient is a silver sponsor of VMworld, held Sept. 15-18 in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the company will be exhibiting in booth #740. At both venues, Surgient will be showcasing Surgient 6.0 features and can discuss real-world installations of the company's solutions.

Features and Benefits

The Surgient Virtual Automation Platform 6.0 provides users with a number of new features, designed to enhance usability, management and enterprise integration.

-- Support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V -- Surgient 6.0 adds support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, further extending support for heterogeneous data centers, enabling administrators and users to manage business services that include a combination of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V- and VMware-based virtual machines, simultaneously.

-- Physical Provisioning Support -- With Symantec's Altiris Deployment Solution integration, Surgient 6.0 provides "bare metal" provisioning support for the automated deployment of blended physical and virtual computing environments enabling use cases that require non-virtualized workloads.

-- New User Interface -- With improved navigation, built-in search functions and a shared portal, the new user interface is easier to use and customize to meet any organization's business needs.

-- Post-deployment Actions -- Unique to Surgient 6.0, administrators and users can define and manage post-deployment automation actions enabling the real-time execution of scripts, patch installation, or loading of test data on virtual or physical machines as part of the deployment process. They no longer need to rely solely on configurations saved in the Surgient library, thus saving time and increasing usage scenarios.

-- Active Directory Support -- Surgient 6.0 provides the automatic management of Microsoft Active Directory machine identities, enabling user authentication and virtual machines to register with Active Directory services, helping eliminate virtual machine sprawl.

-- IBM Rational BuildForge Integration -- Users can now request resources from within IBM Rational BuildForge, helping manage the provisioning and reclamation of infrastructure as needed. With the integration, joint Surgient-BuildForge customers can more rapidly deploy resources in support of the application lifecycle process.

Pricing and Availability

Providing customers with the highest level of flexibility, Surgient Virtual Automation Platform 6.0 is available as either a licensed, onsite installation, where companies fully control the implementation and operation of the system, or as a hosted solution, enabling companies to get started immediately. General availability begins on September 30, 2008, and license pricing starts at $25,000.

About Surgient

Surgient is the visionary and market leader of self-service virtualization automation and lab management. The Surgient Virtual Automation Platform(TM) is a powerful, flexible and mature solution that enables enterprise IT organizations to effectively manage diverse virtual resources and eliminate physical server and VM sprawl, while delivering self-service computing resources to users. With policy-driven automation and a robust, guaranteed reservation system, users have on-demand access to their resources, and IT is freed up from manual administrative tasks to work on mission-critical projects. Using Surgient Virtual Automation Platform, world-class companies including Merck, Raymond James, HP, Halliburton, EMC, CA, Iron Mountain, IBM, GE, SAP, Microsoft, Intuit and others are accelerating their growth and profitability by automating virtual infrastructure in support of their business initiatives. Surgient is a private, venture-backed company based in Austin, Texas. For more information, visit www.surgient.com.

Surgient is a registered trademark of Surgient, Inc in the United States and foreign countries. Surgient Virtual Automation Platform and Policy-Driven Self-Service are trademarks of Surgient, Inc. All other products and company names mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners.

    Contacts:
    Keith Giannini
    Schwartz Communications
    781-684-0770
    surgient@schwartz-pr.com

SOURCE Surgient

http://www.surgient.com

"Certain products have obviously gained our readers' trust and confidence over the years, and readers have rewarded those products with multiple Readers' Choice Winner awards," said Lee Pender, executive editor of Redmond, who coordinated this year's awards issue. "We felt that those products that have dominated their categories for three years in a row deserved an extra level of recognition, so we invented the Redmond Triple Crown award. It adds another level of distinction to the already prestigious Readers' Choice honor."

The Redmond Readers' Choice Awards are truly the voice of our readers. First, the Readers' Choice survey form is sent out to thousands of readers. Responses are collected during a two-week period. After gathering all the results, a team of editors examines the rankings looking for any unusual patterns. Once they're satisfied that the list is a clean and accurate representation of our readers' true favorites, we post the results.

The full article is available online at:

http://redmondmag.com/features/article.aspx?editorialsid=2573

Here is the list of winners for each individual category:
Best Network Management Product
ScriptLogic Desktop Authority - Winner and ISV Winner
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager - Preferred Product
Microsoft Systems Management Server - Preferred Product
Best Application Management Product
Microsoft Operations Manager - Triple Crown Winner
ScriptLogic Desktop Authority MSI Studio - ISV Winner
LANDesk - Preferred Product
Best Performance Management Product
Microsoft Operations Manager - Triple Crown Winner
Solar Winds Orion Network Performance Monitor - ISV Winner
HP Openview - Preferred Product
Best General Network Monitoring Tool
Microsoft Operations Manager - Triple Crown Winner
Cisco Systems Syslog Analyzer - ISV Winner
HP OpenView Operations for Windows - Preferred Product
Best Interoperability Product
MKS Toolkit - Triple Crown Winner
Centrify DirectControl - Preferred Product
Centeris Likewise - Preferred Product
Best Bandwidth/Traffic Monitoring Product
Lightspeed Systems Total Traffic Control - Winner
Argent Guardian - Preferred Product
Network Instruments Observer - Preferred Product
Best Web Usage Monitor
Websense Enterprise - Triple Crown Winner
SurfControl Web Filter - Preferred Product
Blue Coat Proxy SG and AV Web proxy servers - Preferred Product
Best Asset Management/Resource Inventory Product
Altiris Asset Management Suite - Triple Crown Winner
Novell Asset Manager - Preferred Product
Altiris Inventory Solution - Preferred Product
Best License Management Product
Microsoft Systems Management Server - Triple Crown Winner
Altiris Compliance Suite - ISV Winner
Altiris Provisioning Suite - Preferred Product
Best Compliance Tools
ScriptLogic File System Auditor - Winner
NetIQ - Preferred Product
Symantec/Bindview - Preferred Product
Best Virtual Server Product
VMWare GSX Server - Triple Crown Winner
Microsoft Virtual PC - Preferred Product
Best Virtual PC Product
VMWare Workstation - Triple Crown Winner
Microsoft Virtual PC - Preferred Product
Best Non-Microsoft Browser
Firefox - Triple Crown Winner
Mozilla - Preferred Product
Safari - Preferred Product
Best SQL Tool
SQL Power Tools - Triple Crown Winner
ScriptLogic Security Explorer for SQL Server - Preferred Product
Quest Spotlight on SQL - Preferred Product
Best Software Distribution Product
Microsoft Systems Management Server - Triple Crown Winner
IBM Tivoli Netview Distribution Manager - ISV Winner
ScriptLogic Desktop Authority - Preferred Product
Best Software Packaging Product
Installshield Adminstudio - Triple Crown Winner
Altiris Package Studio - Preferred Product
ScriptLogic Desktop Authority MSI Studio - Preferred Product
Best Drive Imaging Product
Symantec Ghost Suite - Triple Crown Winner
Acronis True Image - Preferred Product
Altiris Migration Suite - Preferred Product
Best Migration Product
Quest Software Migration Suite for AD/Exchange - Triple Crown Winner
Altiris Deployment Solution - Preferred Product
Acronis Migrate Easy - Preferred Product
Acronis Snap Deploy - Preferred Product
Best Server Migration Product
Altiris Deployment Solution - Winner
Quest Software Migration Suite for AD/Exchange - Preferred Product
Altiris Client Management Suite - Preferred Product
Best Group Policy Manager
Microsoft - Triple Crown Winner
ScriptLogic Active Administrator - ISV Winner
NetIQ Group Policy Administrator - Preferred Product
Best Disk Defragmentation and Drive Monitoring Tool
Executive Software Diskeeper - Triple Crown Winner
Winternals Defrag Manager - Preferred Product
Acronis Disk Director Suite - Preferred Product
Best Remote Troubleshooting Solution
ScriptLogic Desktop Authority Remote Management Gateway - Winner
Altiris Carbon Copy - Preferred Product
NetSupport Manager - Preferred Product
Best Network Automation and Batch Processing Tool
ScriptLogic Desktop Authority - Triple Crown Winner
HP Openview Operations for Windows - Preferred Product
MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers - Preferred Product
Best Scripting Tool
Sapien PrimalScript - Triple Crown Winner
iTripoli AdminScriptEditor - Preferred Product
Adersoft VbsEdit/Jsedit - Preferred Product
Best Patch Management Product
Microsoft Software Update Services - Triple Crown Winner
Altiris Patch Management Solution - ISV Winner
Shavlik Technologies HFNetChkPro - Preferred Product
Best Application Sharing Tool
Citrix Metaframe - ISV Winner
Microsoft Terminal Services - Preferred Product
Best Application Conflict Testing Tool
InstallShield AdminStudio - Winner
Altiris Package Studio - Preferred Product
On Demand Software WinInstall - Preferred Product
Best Firewall Product - Hardware-based
Cisco Systems PIX series - Triple Crown Winner
SonicWall TZ and Pro series - Preferred Product
Symantec Velociraptor - Preferred Product
Best Firewall Product - Software-based
Microsoft ISA Server - Triple Crown Winner
Checkpoint Software Technologies Firewall 1 - ISV Winner
Symantec Enterprise Firewall - Preferred Product
Best Security Auditing Product
ScriptLogic Enterprise Security Reporter - Winner
GFI EventsManager - Preferred Product
CA eTrust Access Control - Preferred Product
Best Intrusion Detection System
Cisco Systems Cisco Secure IDS - Triple Crown Winner
Snort - Preferred Product
Trend Micro ScanMail for Microsoft Exchange - Preferred Product
Best Intrusion Prevention System
Cisco Systems Okena StormWatch - Triple Crown Winner
Network Associates Intrushield - Preferred Product
Symantec Manhunt - Preferred Product (tie)
Best Smart Card/Biometric/Two-factor Authentication System
RSA SecureID - Winner
Digital Persona - Preferred Product
ActivCard Trinity - Preferred Product (tie)
Best Secure Messaging Tool or Service (Spam and Content
Filtering)
Microsoft Exchange Server - Triple Crown Winner
Barracuda Networks Spam Firewall - ISV Winner
Postini - Preferred Product
Best Anti-Virus Tool
Symantec Anti-Virus - Triple Crown Winner
McAfee GroupShield - Preferred Product
Trend Micro - Preferred Product
Best Anti-Spyware Tool
McAfee - Triple Crown Winner
Trend Micro Antispyware - Preferred Product
Webroot - Preferred Product
Best Backup System
Symantec/Veritas Backup Exec - Triple Crown Winner
Symantec/Veritas Netbackup - Preferred Product
Acronis True Image - Preferred Product
Best Storage Management Product
Symantec/Veritas Storage Central - Triple Crown Winner
EMC ControlCenter SRM - Preferred Product
Seagate Cheetah, Savio and NL35 series - Preferred Product
Best Disaster Recovery Product or Service
Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery - Triple Crown Winner
Symantec Netbackup - Preferred Product
Altiris Recovery Solution - Preferred Product
Best Clustering and Failover Solution
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Clustering Services - Triple Crown
Winner
Veritas Cluster Server - ISV Winner
Neverfail - Preferred Product
Best Load Balancing Product
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Load Balancing - Triple Crown
Winner
F5 Networks 3-DNS Controller - ISV Winner
Mercury Loadrunner - Preferred Product
Most Reliable Windows-based Server Platform
HP - Winner
Dell - Preferred Product
IBM - Preferred Product
Best Exam Preparation Product or Service
Microsoft Press - Winner
Transcender - ISV Winner
Cisco Press - Preferred Product
Best On-line, Disk-based or Instructor-led Training
Microsoft Press - Triple Crown Winner
Global Knowledge - ISV Winner
SkillSoft - Preferred Product
Best Windows Certification-based Boot Camp
Global Knowledge - Triple Crown Winner
The Training Camp - Preferred Product
Mountainview Systems - Preferred Product

About Redmond magazine

Redmond magazine provides cutting-edge product, business and how-to information to network professionals, IT managers and IT directors working on the Microsoft Windows platform. The monthly publication reaches 120,000 qualified subscribers. For more information, visit http://redmondmag.com.

About 1105 Redmond Media Group

The 1105 Redmond Media Group (RMG) provides B-to-B media solutions targeting the Microsoft market. The growing portfolio includes Redmond, Redmond Developer News, Visual Studio Magazine, Redmond Channel Partner magazine, a dozen Web sites including MCPmag.com RedDevNews.com and RCPmag.com, plus numerous events. 1105 RMG provides news, in-depth analysis and hands-on information for IT directors, managers, developers, administrators and partners in the Microsoft community. For more information, visit http://redmondmediagroup.com.

SOURCE: 1105 Redmond Media Group

Redmond magazine 
Doug Barney, Editor in Chief, 508-532-1420 
dbarney@1105media.com