
Show HN: Simple IT Asset Management - soho33
http://www.sohoassets.com/
======
Renaud
It'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/](http://www.spiceworks.com/)

[2]:[http://www.glpi-project.org/](http://www.glpi-project.org/)

[3]:[http://www.ocsinventory-ng.org/](http://www.ocsinventory-ng.org/)

[4]:[http://www.open-source-
guide.com/en/Solutions/Infrastructure...](http://www.open-source-
guide.com/en/Solutions/Infrastructure/It-asset-and-inventory-management)

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SEJeff
Try to compete with this if you want to be serious, Collins is fantastic
stuff:

[http://tumblr.github.io/collins/](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.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Thanks for posting this. I've never heard of it before, but a brief look at
its Github page/repo looks seriously impressive.

~~~
SEJeff
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.

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iamdave
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.

~~~
Spearchucker
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.

~~~
iamdave
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.

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Spooky23
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.

~~~
soho33
that is great feedback. i got a feedback for a specific niche which I think i
will pivot and target.

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soho33
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

~~~
iamdave
Good luck to you! I hope to stumble across this in the future and see you
doing great things :)

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alexitosrv
How does it compare against Snipe IT,
[http://snipeitapp.com/](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.

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helen842000
Is it possible to see any screenshots without having to signup?

~~~
soho33
there is no sign up required. if you click on "View Demo" you can login using
the "demo/demo" account to use the system.

