Altiris provides a modular set of integrated tools for centralized IT management. Altiris’ platform allows IT administrators to start with just those capabilities that are needed today and expand functionality over time as needs change and grow.

While Lenovo’s ThinkVantage Technologies primarily focus on giving end users the tools they need to be effective with their personal IT assets, Altiris’ solutions focus more directly on IT professionals and the challenges they face in administering a broader IT environment. A goal of the Altiris solutions is to be transparent to end users. Thus, most Altiris solutions snap into a central console that is used by IT administrators to remotely batch and automate management operations across many computers at once. An Altiris agent is commonly installed on end-user computers, but the agent is typically hidden from the end-user’s perspective.