Best Software Deployment Tool. For the second year, Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 has won the Best Software Deployment Tool award. SMS 2003 offers a comprehensive solution for software deployment, from planning to inventorying, deploying, analyzing, and optimizing. Detailed reports give you the status of a target group's hardware base—including BIOS and chassis enclosure data—and existing applications, service packs, and hotfixes. You can create target groups according to inventory data and selectively deploy applications to them. You can publish applications to the Add or Remove Programs interface to let your users install applications conveniently and cleanly. Mobile users receive software packages and updates from the nearest appropriate installation source as they move geographically, so you need not require them to install software across the WAN. Integration with Windows Management Services lets SMS 2003 automatically discover the AD properties of your users and systems, so you can target software packages according to AD attributes.
