Published: April 3, 2006 - 1:30am
Neither science nor technology tend to grow through a slow process of accretion, but rather through abrupt, almost cataclysmic shifts that send the infrastructure surrounding it reeling. In just the last few years, support has seen just such a shift.
The world of support is changing. Technology is expanding beyond the datacenter and breaking out of the cube farm. Like Frankenstein, the mobility and connectivity that we have worked so hard to create has come to life and is roaming about outside the walls of our castle and (in an ironic twist on the old story) living the high life with the villagers, but reeking havoc with our zombie support program (for you hypercritical purists, I am not sure if Frankenstein was a zombie…but he probably had a personality much like your own). Consider the developments of just the last few years:
- The number of laptops was 1 in 5 PCs in 1999. Today it is 1 in 3. It is expected to cross 50% in the next few years according to IDC.
- More and more devices are PC connected. From the X-Box 360, to digital cameras, to cell phones, to iPods, to GPS units. Each has a PC interface of one sort or another.
- Home networks are proliferating, and more and more devices connect to and interact with the network.
- Increased number of teleworkers due to increasing transportation costs and long commutes.
- Increased number of regional offices vs. single corporate headquarters.
- The number of adults with broadband internet access at home increased from less than 5% in 2000 to more than 30% in 2005!
- Overall trends are increasing mobility and increasing connectivity (my technology anywhere).
More non-office computers means more support load, more and broader connectivity means greater customer and employee support expectations. The problem with these trends is that current support products are stuck in the old world, still trying to offer LAN-based support solutions through carefully planned support client deployments and throwing millions of non-LAN employees and customers into phone support hell. The trend of mobility and connectivity is like a wave, and like any wave of sufficient strength, the first things it breaks down are the things that cannot easily be moved, like client by client remote control client deployments and VPN installations. I live about three hours due north of where Katrina made landfall, and I can tell you that, after a certain intensity level is surpassed, bigger and better seawalls don’t help in controlling the storm. They may even complicate matters. The existing infrastructure of support solutions is like a seawall. As long as users can be contained like complacent bovine behind the network firewall, they are fine, but break the rules (take your laptop outside) and suddenly all of the elaborate constructs to support the user fall to pieces (“sorry, but we didn’t anticipate you doing something outlandish like using your computer to work at a hotel”).
Of course, there are other ways to deal with big waves than by trying to control them. NetworkStreaming exists because of the rising wave of mobility and connectivity, and our Support Appliance solution is our surfboard of sorts to help our clients ride the wave (sorry for the cliché) instead of trying to control it through client-based infrastructure. With the Support Appliance, you can just plug the box in and twenty minutes later you can be supporting virtually any PC in the world. Not a better support infrastructure, a more flexible means of remote support; not a better seawall, a better surfboard. And unlike practically all of our competition, this is the only wave that NetworkStreaming is trying to catch.
So jump on board with the new world of support and enjoy the ride!
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