Seeking Simpler Tools

About seven of every eight respondents – 88 percent – want IT management software that offers more monitoring flexibility, fewer restrictions and no extra cost, the Ipswitch study found. That would certainly help make things less complex.

The study also found that more than half of respondents - 54 percent - said software licensing models are too expensive, inflexible and complicated to deal with. Meanwhile, another 12 percent said their current software licenses require too much time to track and administer, the study found.

MacDonald, of VSS, empathizes with the views expressed in the findings. Some of the tools are priced based on the number of users, which may be good for small and mid-sized businesses, but not so much for enterprise-level businesses, he added.

As for complexity, MacDonald said, “We’ve tried every possible tool on the market and none of them do exactly what we want.” That’s why his company offers monitoring tools as a service.