Once upon a time Network Inventory was a difficult process for IT professionals. It meant visiting each computer or buying large, expensive PC Audit tools. Now, software tools like NEWT Professional make jobs like PC Audits, Computer Audits, PC Inventory, Software Asset Management and general Network Management as simple as a few clicks of a mouse.

In the world of IT, it can be difficult to navigate through the sea of Network Inventory Software. NEWT Professional by Komodo Labs was released 6 years ago and since then it's been under continuous development and improvement. The latest version scans 50 times faster: scanning 100 PCs in under 5 minutes, all while keeping bandwidth very low.

There are two primary methods to scan a network to take inventory, each with its own pros and cons: using an agent, and agentless. Agent-based software must be installed on every system to be scanned, and often must be manually updated. Agentless methods are usually met with security barriers, often requiring touching each computer to reconfigure and eliminate scan issues. NEWT Professional uses a hybrid method, maximizing the benefits of each method while minimizing the negatives. NEWT's method avoids the need to install agents manually on machines to be audited. This is all done automatically and transparently to the user, and is what gives NEWT it's speed and deep scanning ability. While most agentless methods have security issues related to misconfiguration of WMI or remote registry, NEWT Pro by-passes these, requiring less security setting modification.

NEWT inventories common PC Audit data such as CPU type, product keys, software inventory, computer and monitor serial numbers, memory, operating system, hard drives, printers, etc. It also provides more detailed information not offered by other software packages, such as CPU temperature, hard drive type (IDE vs SATA/SATA-II/SATA-III) and even the brand and serial number of each stick of RAM, which are impossible to detect by other agentless means. The video monitor's display type is even shown accurately as LCD or CRT, a feature unavailable in most competing software products. This can be valuable when performing video monitor upgrades from CRT to LCD, for example.

NEWT Professional is available as a Free Download at Komodo Lab's website. The free version is nearly identical to the full version but is limited to 25 PCs. Because it is able to scan up to 25 nodes for an unlimited time, NEWT Professional allows smaller Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and other organizations with smaller networks full use of the software for free, without expiration. Komodo Laboratories is committed to the idea that small organizations deserve a free Network Scanning product. The competition requires purchase of 25 node licenses, and NEWT comes with 25 extra nodes free for every new purchase. For example, a 50 node purchase comes with 75 total nodes, a 100 node license gives one 125 nodes and so on, giving purchasers the most bang for their buck.