Show HN: Simple IT Asset Management
sohoassets.comIt's a nice and slick project but it is unfortunately not offering a lot of value over, say, a google spreadsheet with a form data entry.
Each organisation have their own rules about the data they want to track, so being able to customise the fields is a major requirement.
Also, you have to provide at least a way to generate asset tags/reference following some customisable numbering rules.
Then there is the bigger issue that Asset management usually doesn't stand on its own: it's usually tied up to financial reporting (what needs to be replaced for the next budget, depreciation, etc), issue tracking (what went wrong which each equipment), HR (to whom the equipment has been allocated to), security (where is the equipment, is it patched and up-to-date, ...).
So Asset management tools end-up being part of a larger system, and they need that flexibility. Being able to import/export data to CSV is nice, but if you are left to do everything else in other tools, then you are not making it worthwhile for someone to pay for what amounts to a flat list of items.
Data As iamdave pointed out, asset collection is also a major issue: most Asset Management tools rely on some network discovery and/or collection service that must be installed on each machine.
For instance, SpiceWorks[1] is free and it's a pretty good tool that does most of what's required for a medium sized company. Then you have Open Source tools like GPLi[2] and OCS[3] and others[4] that have been around for a while and provide pretty good coverage of IT Admin needs in terms of Asset Management.
So while a good start, if you want people to pay for your service, you'll need to provide something that is more accessible/more complete/better in some metric than what is already available for free.
If I were you, I'd make everything free, then add advanced features that people may want to pay, including custom development for enterprise customers who always have special needs.
[1]:http://www.spiceworks.com/
[2]:http://www.glpi-project.org/
[3]:http://www.ocsinventory-ng.org/
[4]:http://www.open-source-guide.com/en/Solutions/Infrastructure...
Try to compete with this if you want to be serious, Collins is fantastic stuff:
http://tumblr.github.io/collins/
Also does this integrate with any accounting software such as Great Plains? Tamit is a several million piece of crap asset and po management system that is not impossible to create a better version of. Look at both of these for ideas on how to grow your product.
Thanks for posting this. I've never heard of it before, but a brief look at its Github page/repo looks seriously impressive.
No problem! For reference, I spent almost 2.5 years buildings my company basically an identical clone of Collins, but in Python with Django / Django Rest Framework for our internal server and asset management.
Good start. I was hoping to see a bit more granularity in the details; does/will it support custom fields?
For example, I don't immediately care about PO date/owners. My PMO does, but when I think asset management, I want facts. What's the IP address of that one node? Where is it located? Last known status (up, offline, maintenance)?
Is there anything by way of discovering devices? Will this tool let me scan devices on a LAN or a I relegated to just entering line items into the webforms? If it's the latter, then there isn't much improvement over the 'spreadsheet' problem.
This is just my constructive feedback having gone from startup to enterprise and everywhere in between at the senior level of IT Operations, but many small shops have SysAdmins doing more than waiting for something to break to sit and key every asset (especially networked) into a tool that isn't giving them beneficial information about said assets.
It just doesn't feel like there's any benefit to using this over Excel given the demo.
There's a fine line between asset management and operational management. IP address is typically an ops issue, as is up or down status.
Probably more interesting from an asset management perspective are quality attributes like mean time to failure, which might inform purchasing or renewal decisions.
Just anecdote, based on experience but if you're in the market size the OP's product is geared towards, asset and operational management often have considerable overlap.
thanks for the constructive feedback. The reason i created the site was i realized all the tools out there (eg. spiceworks) are the ones you have to install on your lan and they would give you all the information and index your network. However, with my personal experience working at a startup and at a big bank, the teams all share a excel which gets emailed around and has multiple versions etc. I tried to make this site simple and target the small shops where they want to manage things from anywhere. This is just a first draft and i'll be adding more features as people request them.
personally i think the main value this gives over excel is that it allows you to edit it from anywhere, run reports (it's coming!) and get notifications on upcoming renewals for maintenance on gear etc.
You're missing the point. No one wants to do data entry. People will download Spiceworks before they pay you $15 for you to manage their spreadsheet for them. Spiceworks will scan your device in the network automatically, grab it's warranty information automatically from the vendor, and thrn email you when your warranties are up for renewal. It does this for free for thousands of assets and that is one feature.
Do you know who your customers are? Are you aware why your competitors do what they do and why they give it away for free?
This is a brutal market. It's crowded, and Microsoft is making it a checkbox in O365.
Find a niche that you can sell into... That's way more important than the software.
that is great feedback. i got a feedback for a specific niche which I think i will pivot and target.
thanks everyone for the great feedback and responses. This was well received that there either needs to be lots of improvements or to target a specific niche within this. i've taken all the advice and will be re-using this to target a specific niche after a feedback i received through the site.
thanks again guys. this was truly helpful
Good luck to you! I hope to stumble across this in the future and see you doing great things :)
How does it compare against Snipe IT, http://snipeitapp.com/ ? amongst others paid solutions.
What is more wanted for a tool like this is integration with in house systems.
I like the effort, but is a really uphill in this niche.
Is it possible to see any screenshots without having to signup?
there is no sign up required. if you click on "View Demo" you can login using the "demo/demo" account to use the system.
i realized this might not have been obvious so I've updated the login page with the verbiage around demo login.
thanks for the feedback