As we mentioned with 10.2.8, if you are currently running a previous major version of Bomgar, such as 10.1.x, please be sure to contact our Support team today to discuss any prerequisites that you may need to meet prior to upgrading.

New Features and Enhancements:

• The Customer Client window can now be resized when in “normal” mode
• The Comments field has been added to the Jump Client search in the Rep Console
• Added the ability to configure the Customer Client’s Customer Agreement timeout under Public Portals -> Customer Client -> Display Options -> Acceptance Timeout
• Added a new “Prompt for Elevation Credentials” option on the Jump Client mass deployment page, which improves the Jump Client mass deployment installation on Vista

Issues Resolved:

• Administrative Interface
  • Changed “residentialPerson” to “inetOrgPerson” to be more in line with default eDirectory installs
  • Resolved an issue where some check boxes would not update until after clicking somewhere else when using IE6 or IE7
• Representative Console
  • Resolved an issue where multiple Settings and Logout windows could be generated from the systray icon menu
  • Resolved an issue where certain Control Panel apps were not being displayed in the Special Actions menu
  • Resolved an issue where the Rep Console’s chat window and side controls were not preserving their state when leaving full screen mode
  • Resolved an issue with the Jump Client search in the Rep Console would display an entire group instead of an individual Jump Client
  • *Resolved an issue where Team Managers’ and Team Leads’ Rep Consoles would sometimes close in specific scenarios
  • *Resolved an issue where company code was not being displayed in the Rep Console when using Public Portals
• Customer Clients
  • Jump Client install and uninstall messages now support all available languages
  • Resolved an issue with installers not executing correctly on Ubuntu 9.0.4
  • Resolved an issue with mobile devices downloading the wrong customer client
• Miscellaneous
  • Resolved an issue where modifier keys could get stuck, mainly the ctrl, shift, and alt keys
  • Resolved an issue where the Customer Client may not remove all files after a session has ended.  Now if the operating system will not allow the files to be deleted, they are marked for deletion upon the next reboot

* These issues only apply to Enterprise licenses

Hypothetical question - up for discussion. Let’s say you’re supporting a broad swath of customers:

• Windows desktops at a remote office, [Employees may or may not be there]
• A traveling executive who bought a Macbook Air against IT’s wishes,
• A high octane sales person on his BlackBerry,
• Linux servers hosted at a colo somewhere in Texas,
• A dozen employees who are tele-working from home,
• An unspecified number of customers calling into the helpdesk. They’re running Windows and Mac. [If they can run Fedora they can support themselves, right?]
• And 5 vendors who need access to your network to support their applications

What’s it take to offer support or enable access in these scenarios? What remote control technology do you need in place? Do you have to have a VPN? Do some people [the executive on a Mac or the sales rep on a BlackBerry, for instance] just have to suck it up till they’re back in the office?

I’m curious how you’re responding to these types of demands.

SHAW: All right, so you brought up some security issues earlier where you were talking about compliance. Are there some other security issues involved with some of these new methods of help desk support?

And, I guess I’m wondering about how much of remote support will be in the cloud and how much of it is security related?

BOMGAR: One of the big prohibiting factors with companies adopting this new breed of remote support technology is that historically some of the vendors, not us, but many of the vendors have been software as a service.

There are huge hurdles with passing sensitive data through a third party. So companies are saying, “Well, look, I need to support this executive at home using his Mac, but corporate policy says I can’t route that sensitive data, potentially very sensitive data, through a third party.”

So, when we entered the market, we chose the appliance-based, on-premise model essentially to alleviate that problem that enterprises were having where they say, “I need to support this, but corporate policy stipulates that this data either be on my premise or I must control it. It cannot be in the hands of or passed through a third party.”

The approach we’ve taken to the market is to provide the technology the way they want to buy it.

Otherwise, you end up solving some of the security and compliance problems around logging and auditing, but causing other security and compliance problems because all that logged and audited data is in the cloud, which doesn’t make anyone feel any better about it.

So, I think one area that is catching on increasingly is the concept of private clouds. We’ve seen a lot of that with the deployment of virtual appliances in a VM where infrastructure is within the network.

You get the benefit of the cloud approach to doing things, but you get it in an on-premise, controlled-by-the-company manner. We’ve seen certainly a lot of attraction around that.

SHAW: A lot of these issues…can they be solved in three to five years? I want to get a sense of five years down the road.

What is the average enterprise help desk going to look like, not only in terms of what tools they’re using but then in terms of the processes? Is the process going to change for end users and the help desk?

BOMGAR: I think the IT help desk, rather than kind of being siloed into, “We support this, and we support that,” you’re going to be much more in a situation where their expectation is “We’re going to solve a problem no matter what it is.”

An interesting comment we’ve gotten from a [let’s say a large law firm or large consulting firm] customer is they have partners.

A partner says: “Look, when I’m at home, if I want to use my Mac to get access to company resources, basically, you can’t tell me ‘no.’ You need to help me do it. And, oh by the way, if my wife wants to use the Mac and it has a problem, you need to help her, too.”

Our customer said, “We’ve had partners of the firm tell us ‘that if my wife is happy, I’m happy, and that makes two of us. If my wife is unhappy, I’m unhappy, and that makes two of us. Don’t make my wife unhappy. So, basically fix her problems in addition to my problems even if they’re not company-related.”

SHAW: That’s a great point, and that’s an interesting thing to delve into…how much responsibility an IT helps desk have in supporting stuff that isn’t bought by the company. How many end users are expecting technical support for their personal items?

BOMGAR: You know, honestly, a lot of them are. I think the firewall is, “Are you doing something work-related?”

If you are doing something work-related, then honestly it shouldn’t matter whether it’s on a computer you bought at Best Buy or a MacBook Air at home or a handheld device you picked up at AT&T.

The point is you’re trying to do your job; you’re trying to be productive.

The IT department’s job isn’t to support the equipment they gave you, it’s to make you effective using information technology because they can’t control where you got it anymore.

SHAW: It seems like we’ve got an attitude change here that’s going to have to take place.

For years, we’ve heard IT help desk people say, “You will use what we give you, and we won’t fix anything…and then when we fix it…or we’re only going to fix certain things.”

Now, it seems like what you’re trying to say is that the new IT help desk is going to be, “Give us any problem. We’ll fix it. We’ll make you happy as quickly as possible.”

BOMGAR: Absolutely! It’s out of necessity.

It’s because that’s what employees expect, and with the new technologies that are available to help desks, like with our product, you can reach out and touch any computer or any handheld device anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds.

As long as you have that access, there’s no reason to tell them “no.”

You know, because you can see the MacBook Air at someone’s house, and you can troubleshoot it and find out why it won’t connect to webmail because it has an old Java version on it. As long as you can do that, there’s no reason you should have to say “no.”

SHAW: Right, right.

BOMGAR: If you can’t see the screen, there is zero chance you’re going to get a Java update installed.

So, you’ve got to have the tools to see the screen because you’re going to be dealing with a lot of devices and handhelds or PCs or Macs that you’ve never seen before. You’re going to be troubleshooting problems you’ve never run into before.

SHAW: Do you think it’s still viable for companies to have an enterprise help desk? It sounds like you’re almost advocating for help desk services that are done across the cloud by an outsourced service. Are you seeing any traction in that area?

BOMGAR: I think you’re going to see a lot of blending. People are going to have to make a judgment call of “If my computer won’t connect to my office email, do I call my corporate help desk or do I call somebody like PlumChoice who offers support to basically anyone for anything?”

There’s going to be a lot of gray area where it’s up in the air as to what causes the problem of why you can’t get to your office email.

But, I don’t think the enterprise help desk is ever going to go away because technology is more complex than it’s ever been, and the needs to use it and the productivity gains that can be gotten by using that technology are higher than they’ve ever been.

So, the enterprise help desk will always be there, but I think the scope of what they’re going to have to support is going to be much broader.

If they try to use the old school technologies to do that, there’s no way they can keep up with the way the world is changing.

If they use the new school technologies available, they certainly can keep up, but there’s still going to be gray areas as to who should support what. We’ll probably always have that.

SHAW: Well, that’s all the time we’ve got on the podcast, today. Joel thanks again for joining us. Where can people go for more information on Bomgar Corporation? And tell us a little bit about some of the products that you make.

BOMGAR: Sure. Everything is on our website www.bomgar.com.

Our technology is appliance-based and company-deployed in their data center.

It enables help desk or IT department representatives to log in via a web interface from anywhere in the world and to provide technical support to any computer or handheld device anywhere in the world merely by directing the end user to a website and having them click a link and enter a session key.

So, really it extends the capability of seeing the screen of a handheld device or computer or whatever it may be anywhere in the world from anywhere in the world.

It bridges all the barriers of firewalls. No pre-installed software is required and it works on any operating system anywhere in the world.

SHAW: All right, cool. Thanks, again.

BOMGAR: Thanks, Keith.

On June 10, Keith Shaw, Programming Director for NetworkWorld, interviewed Joel Bomgar on the Future of the Enterprise Helpdesk. This is a transcript of Part 3 of the interview.

Joel Bomgar

SHAW: Let’s talk about one trend we’re seeing – the consumerization of IT. I would assume that this means end users are bringing consumer devices into the enterprise and then expecting IT to them. Is that the case, and is this going to get better or worse in the future?

BOMGAR: Absolutely, that’s happening. If you rewind five or 10 years, information technology was something that, one, the IT department gave you and, two, they told you exactly how to use it. You really didn’t see a whole lot of information technology that didn’t meet those two criteria.

Now, it is a completely new world out there. The extension of the network – again, mobility and connectivity - means people are saying, “I bought this BlackBerry Pearl or I bought this iPhone. I need to check my webmail on it. I need it to synchronize with Exchange.”

You have executives that go out and buy a MacBook Air. They walk in and say, “I bought this MacBook Air. I want to use it instead of my company sanctioned IBM ThinkPad.”

The IT department is like, “Oh no! How are we going to make all of these enterprise applications work on a Mac or on a MacBook Air with a cellular connection to the Internet? Or, how is this going to work with our network access control?”

So, suddenly you can go out and pick up some Star Trek, new device at Best Buy and it requires space-age support and people expect it work like a VCR. It doesn’t!

It’s requiring a whole new breed of remote support technologies that say, “Look, so what, you bought a MacBook Air. We’re going to try to make it work. We’re going to connect to your computer over the Internet. We’re going to try to get it working with our systems even though we didn’t give it to you, and we’ve never gotten a MacBook Air working with our enterprise applications.”

SHAW: So, is it your opinion that IT is losing this battle against end users that are bringing this stuff in, or are you just trying to say that we’ve got to acknowledge that this exists and we’re going to help you solve that problem instead of just putting up a brick wall?

BOMGAR: If they believe that the consumerization of IT can be contained, they will lose the battle. There’s no way around that.

You’re seeing this with iPhones and MacBook Airs and just Macs in general. You’ve got executives going out and buying them and saying, “This is what I want to use, and you can’t tell me otherwise, so make it work.”

I think the enterprise IT help desks that will thrive are the ones that understand it’s a zoo out there and rather than try to keep it from being a zoo, we have to adapt. We don’t have a choice.

We have to assume that the battlefield looks like this, and we have to adjust our weaponry and tactics to deal with that battlefield.

Those companies who say, “Hey, I just need a corporate policy that says you can’t use iPhones and Macs,” – there’s no way you can win that battle.

I think the companies that can adapt and understand the world has changed, and it’s going to require new tools and technologies to deal with it, they will thrive. The companies that believe it can be contained – it flat-out can’t. There’s just no way that that’s going to happen.

SHAW: So, we can’t just blame Apple for all this?

BOMGAR: (Laughs.)

You know Apple’s been responsible for an incredible amount of innovation. And, there’s no reason to exclude the benefit of that innovation from the enterprise. I mean, why not, if there’s a benefit to carrying around an iPhone and a Macbook Air, why not?!

The IT department is there to facilitate productivity, not to be the office department of “NO.”

On June 10, Keith Shaw, Programming Director for NetworkWorld, interviewed Joel Bomgar on the Future of the Enterprise Helpdesk. This is a transcript of Part 2 of the interview.

Joel Bomgar

Increased end user mobility, consumerization of electronic devices such as netbooks and smart phones alongside stricter security and compliance regulations are causing new challenges for the IT department in the enterprise environment.

Joel Bomgar, founder and CEO of Bomgar, Corp., discusses new tools and solutions for supporting increasingly mobile and demanding end users and the changing face of the corporate help desk with Keith Shaw, programming director for Network World’s Panorama – a podcast program that features interviews with industry experts on the networking landscape.

Keith Shaw: Let’s talk about what we are going to see in the future of the enterprise help desk. What are some of the trends that are driving this new form of the enterprise help desk? Are the old methods not working that we need this new help desk?

Joel Bomgar: The two things that we’re seeing probably the most in the enterprise are two juxtaposed trends. One is a drive toward mobility and connectivity. The other is a drive toward security and compliance. The problem is those two are coming from opposite angles. Mobility and connectivity is all about people connecting from any technology, anywhere in the world doing their job no matter what. Security and compliance says they have to be supported in a very secure, managed, audited and logged environment. That’s really driving a lot of the need toward new tools and technologies where as the old stuff just does not work in this new environment.

SHAW: What are some of these new tools that people are going to have to start using?

BOMGAR: If you take a step back, support can only be done one of three ways:

• You can either fix the problem on the phone with an end user where you tell them what to do,
• You can go onsite and sit in front of the computer yourself, or
• You can connect to it through some type of remote control or remote support technology.

The problem is, obviously, phone and onsite support are incredibly expensive. In today’s economy, and in any economy, these are just not viable ways of doing support.

The third option of connecting to the system and seeing the screen – the problem is what most companies have deployed is a whole smattering of essentially unsecured, remote-controlled technologies that have been adopted ad hoc throughout the years.

So, you’ll walk in and ask, “If you need to connect to a computer, how do you do that?” The typical answer is maybe VNC or Timbuktu or Netop or Radmin or Carbon Copy or Remote Desktop or pcAnywhere. They can list a dozen or more traditional remote control technologies.

SHAW: Right.

BOMGAR: Our response is, “how do you manage that?” The answer is typically, “We don’t! It’s a nightmare! It’s a zoo! We have no idea who’s connecting to who! Most of those technologies don’t work outside the firewall. There’s no security, logging, auditing, compliance around any of them. Basically, we’re in panic mode and the auditors are telling us to fix this problem.”

So that’s, especially in our market, pushing a shift toward single unified technologies that are audited and logged – where the IT help desk can get the job done because they can connect to anything inside or outside the firewall in a very secure and compliant manner.

SHAW: It seems like a lot of these tools that connect remotely are done just through a PC or a notebook. How does this work with some of the new mobile devices? Are there tools that can troubleshoot an iPhone, for example?

BOMGAR: Good question. For the mobile devices, one of the big problems you’re seeing is a much more fractured support environment. Rather than a bunch of Windows 2000 or Windows XP PCs, you have a bunch of Windows PCs with different versions and a bunch of Macs.

Macs are increasingly seen in the enterprise. You’ve got Linux PCs and now a bunch of mobile handheld devices. Most of the old school technologies do not connect to any smart phones or mobile devices at all. In addition to having about a dozen technologies, companies are saying that none of these dozen work in a handheld device scenario.

Certainly, the new class of remote support technologies – some of them do support smart phone operating systems. Ours certainly does.

On June 10, Keith Shaw, Programming Director for NetworkWorld, interviewed Joel Bomgar on the Future of the Enterprise Helpdesk. Below is a transcript of Part 1 of the interview.

Joel Bomgar

Keith Shaw, Programming Director for NetworkWorld, recorded his phone interview with Joel Bomgar on the Future of the Enterprise Helpdesk. Have a listen.

The rise of user mobility, consumerization of IT and security/compliance regulations are causing mayhem for the standard enterprise help desk. Is a new attitude required? Are new tools needed that can help users any time, any place? Joel Bomgar, CEO and founder of Bomgar Corp., discusses the future of the help desk with Keith Shaw. (16:19)

Issues Resolved:

• Click-to-Chat
  • Resolved several issues with the Click-to-Chat client not properly handling specific SSL configurations.
  • Resolved an issue with the Click-to-Chat client not always reconnecting after a network service interruption.
  • An error message is now displayed if a Click-to-Chat client cannot connect to the Bomgar Box.  This message includes an option to download the full Customer Client.
• Representative Console
  • Resolved an issue where Jump client searches would display an entire group instead of a specific Jump client.
  • Resolved an issue where Jump client searches were not searching the Comments field.
• Miscellaneous
  • Resolved an issue with Jump clients not starting if they had been pinned from a session initiated by a Bomgar Button.

Note - this release has only been certified against appliance base version 3.1.0 for the B100, B200 and B300.  It has been certified against version 3.1.1 on the B300v.

Event Summary
Is it possible to do more with the resources you have?
In the real world, how can you make 750 support reps look & work like 3,000?

As employees become more distributed & mobile, the need for support increases. But the reality is that budget & headcount for support doesn’t increase with demand.

Join us for this webcast as IDC & Plumchoice (trusted remote technical services provider by more Fortune 500 companies than any other provider) discuss the challenges facing both internal & external IT help desks. Learn how a new breed of tools addresses these issues while:

• Decreasing costs
• Reducing security threats
• Offering greater flexibility
• Improving retention – of employees & clients.

Presented by:
Rich Surace, Plumchoice
Nathan McNeill, Bomgar
Matt Healey, IDC

Recorded on April 23, 2009

Click here to view the embedded video.

Help Desk Institute: Morgan Jones from Interior Health in Canada explains how Bomgar lets his helpdesk support remote computers and devices outside the network.

Interior Health at Help Desk Institute

Join Bomgar for this timely and informativ case study from Mitch Bryant, an HDI Member and Support Manager of Norton Healthcare Service Center. Mitch will discuss what he is doing to continue his support services while reducing costs. His presentation will cover how he is maintaining high-quality customer experiences by utilizing remote support technologies and processes.

In today’s difficult economic environment you can’t cut support. You must adapt and provide service by utilizing all the tools available to your organization. Join this SPIN and learn from fellow HDI members methods to:

• Reduce support costs
• Enhance service quality
• Provide excellent customer service

Hosted By:
Rich Hand, Executive Director of Membership, HDI

Presented on March 24, 2009, By:
Mitch Bryant is the Support Manager, Norton Healthcare Service Center

Providing Excellent Support in Difficult Economic Times

So, how does a support provider manage a shrinking budget without sacrificing quality?

The University of Missouri has taken a green approach to supporting its customers, one that lowers the cost of overall support through reducing call escalation and improving first call resolution. Learn how Missou utilizes Bomgar and RightAnswers to:

• Reduce the number of first calls and call escalations
• Reuse data for training and knowledge base
• Recycle support session data

Support Desk Economics 101: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Presented on February 19, 2009, By
John Ragsdale, VP of Services Technology Research, SSPA & AFSMI
Nathan Eatherton, IT Service Desk Manager, University of Missouri
Brad Prizer, EVP of Marketing, Bomgar
Simon Yelsky, VP of Product Management & Client Success, RightAnswers

The spreadsheet is in an RFP/RFI format, and the information provided about Bomgar is accurate as of 5/2009. Should you require a more customized RFP, please email sales@bomgar.com..

Image: Evaluate Remote Support Solutions

What’s covered in the Remote Support Competitive Checklist?

This sample RFP/RFI walks you through most of the things you need to look into for any remote support solution. We ask the questions for you and supply the answers as they apply to Bomgar. There’s also room to fill out answers from other vendors.

The spreadsheet helps you walk through questions like these:

• Security - Does the solution satisfy your security/compliance requirements?
  • Architecture [Where data is stored/transferred, on-site vs. cloud/saas]
  • 3rd party assessments
  • Access privileges [Password management, Security providers, Vendor access management, etc.]
  • Audit trail [Visibility into support activity, Videos of sessions, etc.]
• Integrations - Where does the solution fit in with the infrastructure you’ve already invested in?
  • API/SDK [Can you get into the remote support solution and connect it your other systems?]
  • Identity Management [LDAP, AD, Multi-factor authentication, Single Sign-On, etc.]
  • Customizations [Can you customize customer facing design and content?]
  • Integration Partners [What related technology does the remote support solution integrate with?]
• Manageability - What does the solution offer the service desk administrator?
  • Support Teams [Creating teams, Queues, Session management, etc.]
  • Reports [How do you monitor and report on remote support activity?]
  • Dashboard elements [Can you oversee remote support in real time?]
  • Integrated Surveys [Can you monitor customer satisfaction, etc.?]
  • Portals [Can you customize support for each of the products/customers/branches you support?]
• Platform support - What remote systems and devices does the solution support?
  • Cross-platform remote control - No one runs just Windows anymore. Can you remote control Mac and Linux computers and servers? What about mobile devices [BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, etc.]?
  • Network configurations - Can you support customers/employees outside the perimeter without changing firewalls?
  • Remote access - Is remote access to unattended systems included? What are the specifications?
  • Command shell - Can you do remote support in low-bandwidth environments or troubleshoot as deeply as you need to?
  • Language support - Does the solution support international deployments?
• Lowering Cost - How does the solution enhance productivity and lower costs?
  • Licensing - Does the licensing fit your deployment needs? Is it based on concurrency or named seats? Can support reps share licenses?
  • Remote View / Remote Control - Does the remote support solution give reps tiered access to systems? How is screen sharing handled?
  • Chat - Can technical support reps chat securely with customers prior to and during sessions?
  • File Transfer - Can you transfer files? What permissions are around file transfer?
  • System information - Does the solution pull system info from the remote computer?
  • Team functionality - Can support reps transfer, share or escalate support sessions?
  • Reboot - Can the solution reboot the remote computer? Does a customer need to be present to log back on?
  • Demonstration/Presentation - Can support reps present their screen for training meetings or demonstrations?

. . . and more.

Download the Remote Support Competitive Checklist and get a deeper look at all the remote support solutions you’re evaluating.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bomgar Customers in the Video

Memorial Hermann Healthcare Systems²

Norton Healthcare³

Watson Pharmaceuticals⁴

Interior Health⁵

1. This customer case study and conference video montage was created by Bomgar’s internal creative team.
2. David Youngflesh from Memorial Hermann Healthcare Systems
3. Mitch Bryant from Norton Healthcare
4. Dennis Smith from Watson Pharmaceuticals
5. Morgan Jones from Interior Health

According to a recent survey conducted by the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, 74 percent of organizations intend to keep their Macs and buy additional devices in the future. It is unclear how IT help desks will handle the increased number of Mac support issues with traditional remote control desktop tools as the majority are applicable only for PCs.  To ensure consistent, and quality, end-user tech support across all computing devices, organizations need a universal remote support platform that can scale to address a variety of issues.

“We have a large group of students, faculty and staff at MIT, approximately 23,000, that use a diverse range of computer systems,” said Chuck King, Desktop Deployment and Maintenance Team Lead within the central Information Services & Technology (IS&T) department at MIT. “With the growing number of overall Mac users on campus, we were delighted that Bomgar had multiple operating system support, as well as an easy-to-use interface for both the end users and consultants who provide the assistance.  Also, Bomgar’s appliance-based solution and fast ROI was essential in justifying the cost of enhancing our IT support operations.”

Delivered in a secure appliance, the Bomgar Box™ allows IT reps to securely access attended and unattended computing devices, regardless of firewalls, for efficient troubleshooting.  It is the industry’s only enterprise remote support platform that can address IT issues on a Windows, Vista, WindowsMobile, Mac, Linux or Blackberry operating system. Audited by Symantec, Bomgar also includes critical features, such as user authentication and session logging/ reporting, that support an organization’s overall security and compliance policies.

“Gartner has seen the appliance model gain traction, especially among large organizations and clients in regulated industries,” said Terrence Cosgrove, a Gartner senior analyst. “More than 70 percent of large enterprises will use Internet-enabled remote-control tools by 2012 and we anticipate the overall market to experience a 20 to 25 percent year-on-year growth.”

Bomgar helps enterprises of all sizes better manage and resolve costly technology issues that cycle through the help desk.  With the new features of Bomgar 10.3, the company continues to lead innovation in the enterprise remote support market. The following features are a few core capabilities added to the platform based on customer feedback:

• Mac System Information: Bomgar 10.3 includes new front-end Mac systems information that allows support reps to quickly scan the dashboard to dig deep into hardware or network configuration details. With one click, support reps engaged in a Mac support session can easily access the granular systems information to solve common technical issues on a Mac that would otherwise take a significant amount of time to troubleshoot with traditional PC-based tools.
• Click-to-Chat: The new click-to-chat feature enables an end-user to initiate a conversation with a support rep instantly from the Web, without any download. The flash-based customer chat client runs in a browser, enabling the rep to give the user directions or transfer the user to the appropriate queue before any software is installed.
• Canned Scripts: Canned scripts help demanding IT call centers better respond to common support issues. Bomgar reps can upload scripts for use within a remote support session. The rep simply selects the appropriate script from a list and runs it through Bomgar’s command line interface. Scripts can save the support center thousands of hours that would have been spent doing manual diagnosis and repair.

Specifications and Availability

Bomgar 10.3 is software designed to run on the Bomgar Box and is currently available today.  Technical specifications can be found on the website at www.bomgar.com/10.

About Bomgar Corporation

Bomgar Corporation specializes in appliance-based software for enterprise remote support. Bomgar allows companies to connect to remote clients and co-workers via the Internet anywhere in the world in seconds. The product allows organizations to optimize support by virtually accessing end-user systems for real-time incident resolution, eliminating the frustration of phone-only tech support. Bomgar provides enterprises with an unparalleled level of security and scalability, while enhancing IT resource management with the benefits of a virtualized help desk. Backed by venture capital, Bomgar has grown steadily since its inception in 2003 and has over 4,500 customers worldwide. Based in Ridgeland, Miss., the company is also one of the 10 fastest-growing software companies in America ranked by the 2008 Inc. 500.

BOMGAR Contacts:

Melissa Dent
Vice President of Marketing, Bomgar Corporation
mdent@bomgar.com
601.519.0139

Lauren Whittenberg
Lois Paul & Partners
lauren_whittenberg@lpp.com
512.638.5322

The highlights of this release are listed below.  To learn more and to request your upgrade, visit the Bomgar Support portal.

Requirements for 10.3:

• This version of Bomgar requires appliance base software version 3.1.0
• The customer’s Click-to-Chat interface requires Adobe Flash Player 9 or later

New Features and Enhancements:

• Management Enhancements
  • Automatic Failover* - automate the failover procedure between your Bomgar boxes to provide seamless support and business continuity
  • Embassy* - now you receive external support by giving vendors remote access to your network without compromising your security
  • Access Sponsor* - this new feature allows less-privileged representatives to request help from their senior counterparts, and it gives higher-level representatives the ability to grant (or deny) access to their junior counterparts
  • Integration Client Alerts* - if a scheduled task within the Integration Client ever fails, an alert can now be sent to the specified administrator for quick recourse
• Support Enhancements
  • Fast User Switching Support - Bomgar now allows you to support Windows machines that make use of Fast User Switching
  • Improved Windows Vista Support - support representatives are now able to send a remote Ctrl+Alt+Delete key sequence to remote Windows Vista machines
  • Command Shell History - this enhancement gives support reps a configurable amount of command shell history when supporting remote Windows machines
  • Canned Scripts - now you can create custom scripts that can be used within the Command Shell interface
  • Improved Mac System Information - support representative have a much more comprehensive view of remote Mac systems in Bomgar 10.3
• Customer Client Enhancements
  • Bomgar Button Enhancements - the Bomgar Button just got better by no longer requiring you to download the customer client once it’s deployed
  • Click-to-Chat - this new feature gives your customers the ability to chat immediately (via a Flash-based chat interface) with your support reps (via the Bomgar Representative Console)
  • Logged Customer Agreement Acceptance - this enhancement allows you to log any customer agreements acceptances that you have configured for your customers
• Jump Technology Enhancements
  • Proxy Jump - Jumpoint administrators may now configure their Jumpoints so that target machines requiring proxy credentials can be Jumped to
  • Concurrent Representative Access to Jump Clients - multiple reps can now access a single Jump client simultaneously
  • Restricted Jump Client Uninstalls - this enhancement keeps users from accidentally uninstalling Jump clients from their machine

Notes:

• Features with an asterisk (*) require an Enterprise license.
• Non-English translations for Bomgar 10.3 will be available in an upcoming maintenance release.  If you need to provide remote support in a language other than English, ask our support team about Bomgar 10.2.8, our latest translated release.

To learn more about they’re doing remote support for Linux, Windows, Mac and mobile, read the Zappos.com Case Study.

Zappos.com

Incidentally, we often learn a lot from our customers. In fact, most of the features we’ve developed in Bomgar have been from customer suggestions or challenges.

Sometimes, in addition to learning from our customers, we also have the pleasure of being entertained by them. This has been the case with Zappos.com’s dispatch and helpdesk teams. In the process of preparing the latest case study for publication, we’ve come across some interesting and unusual videos.

HDI Vegas 2009

HDI 2009 offers those who deliver both internal and external support a wealth of opportunities to jump start their journey to service excellence. HDI events always offer an exceptional selection of exciting and thought-provoking keynotes, and this year is no exception. Choose from over 100 educational sessions led by top industry professionals. Over 2500 customers and IT support professionals are expected to attend HDI 2009.

Come by our booth to learn about enterprise remote support and for lots of chances to win! Bomgar will also be doing a special promotion with our technology partner, BMC Software.

1. If you are a support manager day trader, you’ll just stop answering the phone to save a quick buck. This strategy saves money for several hours, after which time you are fired.
2. On the other hand, if you are a support manager value investor, you’ll turn off CNBC and invest in people, process, and technology, the building blocks for tomorrow.

If you’ll read the article, you’ll find the approach of the long-term value investor is preferred.

Others are taking note of the pressure to make short-term cost-cutting decisions. Computerworld’s senior editor-at-large Don Tennant complained in his editor’s note on March 16¹ that too many company’s knee-jerk, cost-cutting method is to cut their workforce:

“The shortsightedness is astonishing. Companies are panicking, and they’re taking drastic steps to cut costs. But rather than bothering to seek out hidden costs, many are looking no further than a number on a spreadsheet, and they’re cutting their people. What should be an absolute last resort has become, in far too many cases, an expedient first response.”²

It is on Mr. Tennant’s admonition to “seek out hidden costs” that I’d like to elaborate.

Screenshot: This Blue Bar Represents IT Support Time Wasted

Eliminating Hidden IT Costs

How much time do your techs or IT staff members spend:

1. Watching blue bars move across a screen?
2. Sighing with boredom while something reboots?
3. Trying to connect with VNC, RDP or some other legacy pc remote control tool?
4. Standing awkwardly in a crowded elevator on the way to a troubled system on another floor?
5. Sitting behind a steering wheel having quality windshield time on the way to a client site?
6. Waiting [Waiting to board a plane, waiting on the tarmac to take off, waiting on the tarmac to dock, waiting for luggage, waiting wherever]?

Add the hours to get your total time wasted. Then do . . .

Wasted Time/Total Time = ($/Salary)

$ + Travel [airfare, hotel, etc.] = Estimated Hidden Cost of Support

At the end of the equation, you will have arrived at a HUGE hidden cost. Costs like these are hidden because the-way-things-have-always-been-done often seems like a given, a fixed entity. We try to make support more responsive by adding more people to take the calls and handle on-site visit. Or we try to make support more cost-effective by keeping everyone in a cubicle and giving them all headsets.

So much of the energy around fixing support has been on the poles, the inputs and outputs of the process, rather than the process itself. But it’s the process of support that’s broken.

If you have a broken process, and you add more people, all you get is more people doing a broken process.

If you have a broken process, and you add better tracking, all you get is a better-tracked broken process.

For a while, and from 30,000 feet up, the support organization may look like it’s running better with more people or better tracking. But introduce a tighter economy and it becomes a) harder to add people and b) confusing that better tracking alone has not streamlined incident resolution.

Meanwhile, on the ground,

• Techs feel like thoroughbred stallions in a corral for Shetland ponies, and
  [They know HOW to resolve the incident but the non-technical end-user on the phone doesn't know what the system tray icon is]
• End-users feel like they’re in a line at Disney World.³
  [They thought they finally got to the right person after 30 minutes, but discovered that the initial wait only brought them into the building where 30 more switchbacks awaited]

Surely, there’s a better way to do this process?

This post is getting too long to do more than raise the question, so I’ll just end it by saying that spending just a little amount of time questioning the support process at the ground level where techs and end-users interact will reveal hidden costs galore.

Documents related to this post:

Lower Your Costs.pdf

Concurrent Licensing Explained.pdf

Virtualizing Support - IDC Opinion.pdf

1. Computerworld changes the titles of print articles when they duplicate them online. This is a good idea if they’re doing it for search engine optimization, but it’s nonetheless confusing when a magazine reader tries to find an article online. “Fingers Crossed” became “Make Your Vendors Share the Pain” online.
2. I may encounter some flak for citing this, since the rest of the article is rather critical of vendors. However, Bomgar’s prices are incredibly competitive, especially when you consider the fact that we include functionality that others sell separately. And we have remote support options for smaller support organizations.
3. I am stealing this phrase from one of our customers but have now forgotten which one it was.

1. If you are a support manager day trader, you’ll just stop answering the phone to save a quick buck. This strategy saves money for several hours, after which time you are fired.
2. On the other hand, if you are a support manager value investor, you’ll turn off CNBC and invest in people, process, and technology, the building blocks for tomorrow.

But this is 2009 and tomorrow is so darn far off. As the economist John Maynard Keynes famously said a few years before the Great Depression, “In the long run, we are all dead.”

There is no free lunch, but fortunately, some lunches are freeer than others. Both IDC and Gartner have published reports in the last ninety days encouraging IT departments to focus on long run IT expenditures that have short run ROI. Among the areas cited by IDC² are datacenter virtualization and remote support solutions. Why? It’s because these technologies have both short payback (often under six months) and strategic significance.

In the case of datacenter virtualization, you are consolidating your servers to get more with less. In the case of remote support, you are virtualizing your people, allowing them to support anyone anywhere.

The short run ROI of remote support comes from time saved driving onsite or troubleshooting over the phone. The long run ROI comes from transitioning support’s work from the cubicle to the Web.

No one technology or process is going to make 2009 easy for support organizations, but with a balance of short and long term perspective, the support manager can still make changes that will produce an ROI in 2009 . . . before we are all dead.

1. This article originally appeared in the March/April issue of Support World Magazine, published by Help Desk Institute.
2. ”Rationalizing the IT Support Services Budget for 2009: Three Things Enterprises Should Investigate“, IDC 2009.

Silicon Valley’s on its second roller-coaster ride of the decade – the last being the Cyclone of the early 2000s. But the big guys, even though most are laying people off, are looking at the current economic situation as an opportunity – something every business would be wise to do. They are taking steps to improve efficiency, largely through innovation and cutting edge technology (into which category, by the way, Bomgar’s remote desktop control software most definitely falls).

For smaller companies, the start-ups that most often take the risks inherent in innovation, the news isn’t all bad either. The behemoths may be looking for what you’ve got. And, after all, some of the giants were start-ups in earlier tough times. Cisco, for example, emerged during the 1987 crash and both Facebook and MySpace gloriously rose from the ashes of the dot-com crash.

To find out more about what’s in store, check out New tech start-ups can rise from the economy’s ashes.

This is a 5 minute tour of the Bomgar support representative console. In this demonstration video, the sales engineer is offering remote support from a Mac to a Windows PC.

The video will show you how support reps can

• answer a customer’s request for remote support
• chat with customers
• transfer files to/from the remote computer
• view the system info of the remote computer
• control the remote pc with screen sharing

Note: Please contact Sales@bomgar.com, not support, if you have questions about this video. The narrator accidentally said “support”.

New Features:

• Added EU Portuguese translation
• Added an optional watermark indicator to be displayed on the customer’s screen whenever a Representative joins a session. This is enabled via the administrative interface.

Feature Enhancements:

• Added a timestamp to the Status column of the Jump client listing to display the last time a Jump client either connected or disconnected
• Jump client banners now update when modified
• Improved the mouse control of the Mac Presentation Attendee Client (i.e. when an attendee controls the presenter’s screen)

Issues Resolved:

• Administrative Interface
  • Language Support
    • Resolved an issue where the Jump client Deploy button was not properly displayed with Portuguese and Chinese translations
    • Resolved several display and spacing issues with Dutch translation
  • Failover
    • Resolved several display issues that appeared after a failover event
    • Resolved an issue where the failover history allowed the status page to grow very large; now limited to 100 entries
  • Security Providers
    • Resolved an issue with Group Policies where stacking teams to establish roles was not working properly
    • Resolved an issue where deleting a Group Policy could leave users as members of teams
  • Syslog
    • Resolved an issue where several Syslog events were reported as UNKNOWN.  These events are now logged correctly.
  • Misc
    • Resolved an issue where session recordings were not viewable in FireFox 2.0
    • Resolved an issue where session data (session recordings, chat transcripts, etc.) was unavailable under certain conditions
    • Resolved an issue in the Reporting API where the “Conference Owner Changed” event types weren’t returning the correct destination types
    • Resolved an issue with downloaded Presentation reports showing the wrong timestamp format
• Clients
  • Mac
    • Resolved an issue with the Representative Console redirecting to an invalid URL when login credentials have expired
    • Resolved an issue with the Option key getting stuck
    • Resolved an issue with incorrect characters being sent to the remote machine with Caps Lock enabled
  • Linux
    • Resolved an issue where URLs were not correctly launched from the Customer client on KDE4
  • Mobile
    • Resolved an issue where the uninstall message box on some Windows Mobile devices would not close properly
  • Presentation
    • Resolved a clock skew issue between the Bomgar Box and the Presentation scheduler
  • Misc
    • Resolved an issue with some desktop effects not being restored properly after an elevated session ended
    • Resolved an issue on Vista where the customer exit survey was not being displayed after an elevated session ended
    • Resolved an issue where the shift, control, and alt keys could get stuck
    • Resolved an issue with sorting Jump clients in non-English languages and Jump clients with numeric leading characters
    • Resolved an issue with Jumpoints caused by browsing large networks
    • Resolved an issue where the Accept Session prompt was not displayed if transferred from another Rep

Known Issues:

• When using the Privacy Screen feature, transparent windows on the remote computer may not be displayed to the support rep (e.g. the Office 2007 ribbon)
• Customer exit surveys may display after jumping to elevated Vista machines

A handful of minor issues have been resolved in this latest maintenance release.

Issues Resolved:

• Customer Client
  • Resolved an issue where the Custom Uninstall Message text was not being honored (i.e. only the default message was being displayed)
• Representative Console
  • Resolved an issue where, in rare cases, Jump clients were not enumerating correctly in the display list
  • Resolved an issue with high CPU usage on the Representative’s machine when a large list of Jump clients was expanded