Last week, Altiris was kind enough to fly me to its user group meeting, called ManageFusion, in Orlando, so I could participate in a panel discussion on virtualization and meet lots of happy Altiris users and product people. I was also on hand for three announcements that closely reflect three significant systems management trends that EMA is seeing.

The first announcement was the introduction of a security offering, the Altiris Client Security Management Suite. This provides some key client security capabilities that leverage the asset and configuration knowledge of Altiris' other products, such as:

* Locking out USB devices or Wi-Fi connections in specific network situations (e.g. at an Internet café, but not on the corporate network).

* Implementing granular security permissions based on context (e.g. to allow full administrator rights, but still prevent malicious software installation).

* Ensuring sensitive data that is written to external media is always encrypted.

This reflects the convergence of management and security that EMA has been highlighting for some time, a trend that shows up in messaging and products from several vendors including Configuresoft, Tripwire, Cambia, and others. Such vendors take the approach that a tightly managed system is a well-secured system, and the new features from Altiris reflect this ethos. Such approaches blend key values of client system manageability with critical requirements for endpoint security - including control and audit of the data accessed from, used by, and often stored on these client systems.

The second announcement was the availability of a new Managed Service Provider program, including solutions for both remote provisioning and remote assistance. This reflects a trend EMA is seeing, where midsize businesses especially are looking for alternative, simpler delivery channels for management capabilities.

I recently wrote in this column about the benefits of appliance-based products - such as Kace's KBOX, the Xceedium Gatekeeper, Levanta's Intrepid M, and the Citrix Branch Office Appliance. Like these appliances, "on-demand" services (such as management services from Altiris, Everdream, and WebEx; or application services like Salesforce.com) are particularly attractive for midsized businesses, for many of the same reasons. They skip the often difficult, costly, complex, and time-consuming implementation effort, and often provide a better value experience for SMBs.

Denise Dubie is senior editor with Network World.