I've used LANSurveyor for years, and still maintain it. I looked at the NTM in beta and decided the price / performance ratio wasn't good enough to warrant. After consideration and reading the Thwack comments, I feel that is still justified. In my book, if you added one feature that is hard (and / or expensive) for network admins to add, the product would be far more palatable at it's price point. We are using NPM, NCM, SAM, UDT, IPAM, ET, NTA, WHD, and DameWare, so price points don't scare me off, but the one piece of my network puzzle that drives me absolutely nuts is cable plant management and documentation. The methods range from using a spreadsheet or database, through using embedded custom fields, and up to expensive software products specifically for that function. I would love to see that management functionality added as a drill-down and custom reports in NTM. Once you have discovered a network or imported it from another module, you could click on links to embed the appropriate rack / panel / port / media information. Once in the database, and admin could drill down on any link to obtain the physical and logical data for the circuit. This would be a boon for documenting fiber types, connection and panel information, Cat5 / 5E / 6 / 7 information, cable identifiers, carrier circuit info, whatever. Formatted reports could extract info per user panel, circuit, etc. For extra points, when a tech gets a ticket for a workstation problem to troubleshoot, you could drop in a graphic of his entire distribution chain. THAT would be value and a time saver in my opinion. it would also add value to acquiring the related products as a marketing venue. Otherwise, I would return to my original suggestion during development, that the NTM functionality should be integrated into NPM as a value sweetener rather than sold as a separate product.
