Stepper motor drivers - Conflicting documentation, need some guidance.

Hi,

I'm a long time LabVIEW user, first time motor driver, looking for some guidance.

I want to control a stepper motor via ethernet using simple commands in Labview (e.g. Make x steps, Spin continuously at speed y).

I'm having a hard time finding out what hardware I need to get to achieve this by browsing the NI Store.

To amplify my headache, I've been finding conflicting information in the NI documentation. For example, for NI SMD-7613:

The manual says "You need the following to use your NI SMD-761x stepper drive: -a source of step signals, such as a PLC or motion controller" 

However, the quickstart guide makes no mention of either, and says to simply connect the device via ethernet to a pc and send off your command.

So to help me make sense of this, I have 2 small questions:

1) Can anyone confirm that no, I do not need a PLC or motion controller for the NI SMD-7613

2) Is there a different/cheaper NI module I could be using for these basic commands? The SMD-7613 comes with more bells and whistles then I need, but so far I haven't found anything cheaper from NI.

Thanks in advance,