New Windows Intune beta available

The next version of Microsoft’s cloud based management suite for SMBs, Windows Intune, has been released as a beta. The beta itself can be used on up to 10 computers until 30 days after this version of Windows Intune becomes commercially available. If you’re interested in finding out more about Windows Intune, which has been getting a lot of positive buzz recently, you should get on the beta to see whether or not this cloud based management service might improve the way you manage small numbers of Windows based PCs.   The new beta offers the following features: Software Distribution. Allows you to deploy Microsoft and third party applications to Intune managed PCs. Remote Tasks. Allows you to remotely run full and quick anti-malware scans, update definitions and restart Intune managed PCs. License Management. Allows you to manage Microsoft retail, OEM, and volume licenses. Also supports license management for third party software. Enhanced Reporting. Allows you to generate hardware reports, detailing the hardware configuration of Intune managed PCs. Alerts and Monitoring. Alert types can be configured to trigger when a specific threshold is reached, or a specific percentage of Windows Intune managed computers become affected. To find out more about getting involved with the beta, check out this post on the Windows Intune Team Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/archive/2011/07/11/windows-intune-beta-now-available.aspx Follow me on twitter @orinthomas