Absolute Visibility vs. KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

I do think it is well worth the cost and consideration, especially if you are using it on devices containing electronic medical records, personal health information or personal privacy information or devices that contain proprietary information, critical business information or other information that needs to be securely protected. It can also be used to track a device (individual) as well if that is your goal. We use it as an extra precaution to track our mental health clinicians that do home visits. It allows us to keep track of their whereabouts, in case an issue arises at a client's home. We are able to send someone out to check or assist, alert emergency services or send law enforcement if a situation should arise.

Incentivized

I think it has added value for any organization. It reduced our Tech Support cost by: -Supporting users anywhere -Reducing users downtime as well keep them informed with the status of their tickets -Managing software and hardware actively -Processing automation -deploy mass software installs, patching or updates - Provide approved software's to users to install without IT help

Incentivized

• I tracked a stolen computer all the way to Africa from USA and disabled it.
• I set up geofences with alerts. As soon as a computer got a wifi connection outside of our fences it would email me its current location.
• Absolute's persistent technology was helpful. -Even when a pawn shop would attempt to "wipe" a device before getting it online, as soon as it got online it notified me of the OS re-installation and current location. We could call authorities and they could recover the device for us. And they were happy it made their job easier and deterred the pawn shop from reselling stolen devices.

Incentivized

• Inventory: KACE provides a ton of hardware and software inventory information that is easy to search, filter, and export. This is critical when we need to find the answers to questions about how many of such and such we have in our fleet.
• Patch Management: We were using WSUS before and it was altogether too cumbersome. KACE has given us the power, flexibility, and verification we need to feel comfortable our patches are up-to-date.
• Service Queue: We made KACE our help desk system and it does everything we need it to do. Great improvement over our old system.

Incentivized

• I do not know where I would consider this product to be deficient in functionality, difficult to use or any major changes that needed to be addressed.
• I wish the pricing of this product was a little lower, but I do think it is well worth the cost and consideration, especially if you are using it on devices containing electronic medical records, personal health information or personal privacy information.

Incentivized

• The KACE SMA needs a better way to handle different roles in the software so certain users can access or administrate certain parts of the software, but not the entire software installation.
• The KACE SMA could improve the ticketing process of projects. The aspects of the title and some information do not always flow down from the parent ticket to its child tickets.
• The KACE SMA could improve the UI of the software with the addition of different CSS color schemes.

Incentivized

Overall, the software is simple to understand and use. That said, most vendors have been slowly updating their user interfaces to HTML5 so that they have a clean updated look and feel. This is where KACE falls short in that the UI is great for a packaged software 10 years ago. This isn't a major limitation as the software is really meant primarily for technology users.

Incentivized

KACE does exactly what you need it to do, it maintains your computer environment. You can set patch schedules, inventory computers, setup software catalogs; basically everything you need to ensure the computers on your network are being actively managed. This is all with little need for constant configuration or updating the setup.

Incentivized

I have only used Absolute Data and Device Security (DDS). It was recommended by my Dell sales rep. After reviewing the product info, and loading a demo, it became clear that this is what was needed to add to our existing security to protect us from information loss due to a data breach on our portable devices. I presented this solution to the appropriate departments, and they agreed that this was something well worth the investment.

Incentivized

We have selected this software because it rolls several different systems into one. We have a helpdesk system with this and an asset and inventory management system as well. We pay one price for the whole system instead of paying multiple companies different amounts that would have totaled more than we pay for the single system.

Incentivized

• Recovery of stolen assets.
• After recovering a few devices and students becoming aware of Absolute being deployed, it had a prevention effect deterring additional theft.
• It deterred pawn shops from accepting our stolen machines.

Incentivized

• KACE has saved us from having to spend several days of employee hours in crafting DVDs and duplicating them (100+ DVDs)
• KACE has saved us on the postage required to send out those DVDs for every update (monthly) to all of our customers electronically

Incentivized