World Web-based Clientless Remote Support Software Markets

Tough Economy and Growing Need to Support Geographically Dispersed Workers Spur Growth in the World Web-based Clientless Remote Support Software Markets

Opportunities are emerging in the world web-based clientless remote support software markets as businesses are compelled to "do more with less" and optimize service and support both internally for employees and externally for customers. Furthermore, increased globalization juxtaposed with the shortage of skilled workers is triggering enterprise adoption of remote support solutions to service geographically dispersed employees. Accordingly, vendors are rising to the occasion, offering high quality and easy-to-use remote support solutions, opening up new possibilities in the remote support market. "However, it is difficult to predict the impact of the current economic crisis, and in general businesses are approaching IT spending with caution," notes the analyst of this research service. "It is reasonable to expect that the majority of companies will restrain spending, slash IT budgets, and avoid new investments." Nonetheless, tools such as remote support that can reduce information technology (IT) staff travel and ratchet down costs will be seen as worthwhile investments.

Customers are displaying a preference for purpose-built remote support products, moving away from web conferencing products. Hence, the market will witness a demand upswing for dedicated remote support products that are in sync with customer demands. Support and customer service are gaining traction as a critical part of business strategy, with the focus intensifying on expediting business efficiency. For example, deploying IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), a set of standards for common IT and customer processes, is quickly emerging as a part of businesses' priority lists. Many support vendors are aligning products to fit into this paradigm. Depending on end-user demand, most vendors have broadly segmented product sets into those catering to teams of tech support vs. single man IT support. Vendors are also planning different product evolutions for the two sets.

"Unattended support for any Internet-connected device is the next product roadmap priority and most vendors' product lines are providing or evolving to provide unattended and attended support on the same product," says the analyst. "This helps them address the internal helpdesk/IT helpdesk target market that needs to cater to end users problems as well as maintain the company infrastructure." Architecting a solution that caters to multiple needs such as combining attended and unattended functionality, will build a strong ROI case, where these solutions can help improve top lines and still curtail costs. The hosted or software as a service (SaaS) model remains the dominant delivery model. Hosted solutions and their "hands-off" installation and management lend themselves well to the support market, where the customer is trying to maximize limited (IT) resources within an organization. Some of the success factors in the market include providing customization to allow businesses to overlay their own brand on the product, when providing support to their end customers. Further, to achieve deep market penetration, vendors must also enable 'anywhere' support that allows technical support professionals to administer support from any location and any device, including PCs, Macs and mobile devices.

Market Sectors

Expert Frost & Sullivan analysts thoroughly examine the following market sectors in this research:

• Internal employee facing remote support solutions
• External customer facing support solutions
• Hosted remote support solutions
• Premise-based remote support solutions

Technologies

• The following technologies are covered in this research:
• Attended support
• Unattended support
• Remote support for mobile devices
• Web conferencing