Today's current economic situation underscores the importance of scrutinizing all business expenses, particularly within IT. Although point patching products may look more attractive on the surface, closer inspection often reveals hidden costs and missing capabilities. The result: fragmented patch management and weaker security posture while also being a more costly and cumbersome option for organizations to maintain.

While "free" tools appear to be an enticing solution for patch management, looking deeper into the needs of the organization leads to selection of a more complete patch management solution which results in reduced long-term risk and optimized operating expense.

A complete patch management software solution provides a single platform and a robust content repository that can address patch management in a holistic manner without the requirement to procure multiple point products or the increase in staffing to author scripts on an ad hoc basis for third party
applications. The advantage to these solutions is an overall lower operating cost due to consolidated management as well as a stronger overall security
posture and flexibility to proactively address issues with less staffing burden.