Desktop automation has been around for years. Ghost was written in 1996 to enable IT support people to clone a computer. ZENworks was introduced by NetWare in 1998 to help manage server and desktop configurations across the network: it is very far from being a new idea. What is interesting about it, however, is that it never stops evolving.
The basic aims of automation are simple: to reduce your IT costs, to deliver services more quickly and to be more reliable and secure. Automation in itself does not do anything you could not do manually. It is just that you would have more staff than you need, and the chances of everything being done consistently, correctly and quickly would be low. If you are not heavily automated, you are almost certainly inefficient and not delivering a top class IT service. In a rising market this may not be your top priority, but you should be aware of what you are missing, and if you need to reduce costs or improve performance, this is the way to do it.
