Spiceworks, the ad supported, Austin-based IT management company, has announced a pretty cool feature for their 400,000 IT managers -crowdsourcing.  The new features, called SpiceLists, enable users to collaboratively develop, share, and rank IT best practices, products and services, and reports – making it even easier for them to manage their networks. The SpiceLists address one of the biggest problems facing IT pros in small businesses today – how to quickly and easily connect with people like themselves in order to find the products, services and information they need to solve their unique IT issues.

“Crowdsourcing has brought tremendous benefits to the consumer world and it’s now doing the same for the average small business IT manager like me,” said Martin Peverley, IT Manager, Bihler of America, Inc. “By assembling the collective experience, knowledge and ratings from thousands of IT professionals around the world and letting the best rise to the top, Spiceworks is making it easier for me to get my job done.”

Spiceworks, one of the Austin Emerging 100, seems to be on to something here.  The ability to see what others in the industry are using for online storage or remote management packages, knowing what to buy and how much they should pay for them, adds a lot of collective knowledge to what had been a fragmented market.  Austin Startup readers, any experiences with this?  Let us know in the comments…