Need-to-Have IT Advice, and All for Free

Overwhelmed by the plethora of disk encryption software options available today, Richard Morton, chief administrative officer at financial services firm InvestLinc, desperately needed assistance selecting just the right solution. Morton, who acts as the Ohio-based company's CIO, required a program to protect the highly sensitive information residing on employees' laptop computers. He considered soliciting feedback from a high-priced consultant; a seasoned systems integrator and his own IT team. Instead, Morton sought the guidance of perfect strangers.
That's because Morton is a member of Spiceworks Community, part of a free, Web-based collaborative IT management application that lets IT professionals develop, share and rank best practices, products, services and reports. Welcome to the world of Web 2.0 IT management, where collaborative tools like Spiceworks are granting CIOs unparalleled access to external brain trusts.
Source: CIO