Systems Management

...kace of course.

I prefer the Kace solution over the others I've seen due to ease of setup and maintenance.

KACE has worked really well for us. Honestly, I haven't worked with a lot of the others, but KACE is fairly simple to set up and maintain.

SCCM, albeight powerful is not recommended for small and medium sized organizations. It's best put to use in huge environments.

As mentioned in comments... I have used ZCM in a medium sized infrastructure (1500 nodes in multiple locations) and SCCM in a larger infrastructure (8.5k nodes).

Honestly ZCM is WAAAAAAY better as a software deployment tool. It is insanely powerful and surprisingly simple and easy to use, very user friendly.

SCCM is extremely complex, at least 3-4 objects to deploy 1 simple piece of software vs ZCM's 1. SCCM does have beer bandwidth management with MS bits technology though. ZCM's main drawback is bandwidth management... there really isn't any (as of 10.x), except for satellite servers (these are very nice and powerful though) which does not help outside of the local network.

We are using Empirum...a very good solution for systems management. Currently maintaining approx. 550 Clients with that solution

We use a product made by ScriptLogic Called Desktop Authority. Settings can be applied based on very complex validation logic. This product has saved us a ton of time. Scriptlogic is owned by Quest who is in the process of going private. I've heard rumors that dell could be interested in buying them. If dell did i'd be curious to see if they tried to add in the capabilites of Desktop Authority to the Kace appliances. It may not be as powerfull as SCCM but it also does not cost nearly as much

I have Used multiple systems but I like the Kace Kbox the most. It is very powerful and can do most things you need it to do. With labels and custom reports and rules the sky is the limit.

LANDesk is real good, but the best part is they are a relatively small company. Their tech staff are real knowledgeable and in 1st, 2nd and 3rd work together pretty closely so finding an answer usually comes pretty quick. They also treat their customers well and want to work with you to make the best product. The forums are also really good and you can get a lot of great advice. not to mention the app itself is pretty easy to get to know and use but at the same time its pretty powerful with all the tools you need and then some. I've been an SMS 2.0/2003 admin, LANDesk admin and worked with SCCM and I found LANDesk was an equal. Mind you, I would likely use SCCM over LANDesk in a larger enterprise type of environment.

Capainstaller - http://www.capasystems.com - Has tons of features and fairly easy to use.

What's the best tool? This question is really broad and hard to answer. What's the best tool for what? Software distribution? Software management? Asset management? Licensing? For what size company? How many nodes do you have off your network and for what period of time? More details will help folks here answer with more than their preferences. There are a couple that qualify their answers but that only helps a little bit.

I'm currently using Dell KACE, SCCM 2007, and Absolute Manage.

KACE is by far the easiest to setup, however I believe it lacks in the criteria for creating groups/smart groups. SCCM offers much more criteria which is necessary in our environment.

SCCM is very good i prefer it the most very easy to setup Windows updates and create third party packages. Microsoft has really stepped up in SCCM 2012 i've been testing that and love it.

I prefer Absolute manage for deploying updates and packages to MAC's

It really depends on the needs of your organization and its size.

I manage a network of around 175 computers & servers and have used the KBOX 1000 for the last few years. I feel it is the best product by far for small & medium sized companies.

I looked into other products, but they were all either more expensive, way harder to use, or missing required features. I wanted 1 product to handle inventory, software distribution, and patching.

We use DSM7 (Frontrange)

We use ZENworks Configuration Management 11.2 for Application deployment and Workstation Management.

I recommend SCCM and it is among the best enterprise system management tools in the market. If you are a SME business, i recommend LANDesk. I have been using SCCM and satisfied with its performance : -)

frontrage DSM - formerly known as enteo. formerly known as NetInstall.
interesting features, but the whole system's buggy as hell x(

I think there is no "best" solution.
The questions you have to ask yourself is what you know and how much change is worth the money/effort for the company.

I know Zenworks, they had Altiris.
Now use SCCM, and the motivation was money.
In the end I really wonder if money was saved or lost, but nobody would never admit a lose of course.

My personal vote goes to Zenworks!
Doesn't anybody have a list of favorite functions ?

My experience of SMS and later SCCM is that it is a badly flawed tool with poor performance and limited diagnostics. I agree that the client is often the culprit.  Never seen these issues with Altiris deployment tools which are pretty fast as is the operating system deployment. Not convinced that Symantec will continue to invest as much in the tool as Altiris did.

Lots of votes for the market leaders...
I have a lot of experience with LANDesk and SCCM 2007/2012, then Altiris, Marimba, Tivoli and Zenworks. Also a couple of bespoke tools written to mimic SCCM (ironically).

I like the simple reliability of LANDesk, it used to be a lot cheaper than SCCM. I don't really know why but a lot of my clients are going with SCCM, they are being 'sold it', but in reality, could probably do with a smaller simpler and cheaper tool. But Microsoft are doing some good deals so its not too bad price wise (but I'm glad I am not paying for it).

On a positive side for SCCM 2012, the client, yes is a bit crap, BUT, you can set baseline monitoring and get it heal itself now, using the baselines (desired config) could be a very useful tool to make sure things stay as you want them.

The best tool is one that does what you need for the price you are willing to pay.  For larger firms, typically SCCM is chosen due to the number of management technologies, scalability and licensing agreements.  SCCM does have slightly increased complexity over other solutions and it is notorious for a flakey WMI agent.

Altiris is also a good deployment tool. It's bare-metal OS provisioning has been rated more than that of SCCM... and has a good set of inventory management features as well.

We use SCCM and are satisfied :)

I have used SCCM and it is one of the finest in market.