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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / SEPTEMBER 1, 2003; VOL. 2 NO. 35
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Breaking News - Operating Systems
& Middleware:
Motive Transforms Desktop Support
Into On-Demand Model
Motive, a leading provider of service management software, introduced a set
of
lightweight desktop products that allow outsourcers, for the first time, to
provide enterprises with electronic self-service and assisted support
capabilities through an on-demand offering. By combining new versions of
Motive's Desktop SmartSupport and SmartCall products, Motive is giving
outsourcers the flexibility to price and deploy desktop support offerings
based on customer choices, as well as provide highly competitive usage options
that increase adoption and drive business value.
Electronic service has long promised to improve the economics of supporting
end-user desktops, yet outsourcers have been saddled with low user adoption
rates, high costs and increased complexity and business risk. Motive's latest
Desktop SmartSupport product uses a lightweight client that reduces the
complexity for outsourcers deploying, managing, synchronizing and updating
support for hundreds of thousands of desktops spread across multiple
enterprise customers. It simultaneously offers a lower-risk usage and pricing
model that provides competitive advantage for the outsourcer and improved
flexibility for their customers. This is in stark contrast to traditional
desktop support offerings, which rely on heavyweight agents and require
customers to purchase large volumes of "seats" up-front. Further, traditional
approaches leave outsourcers financially exposed if customers do not purchase
support offerings or fail to achieve the necessary user adoption to justify
the promised economic returns.
Motive's desktop service offering also includes SmartCall, the industry's
first application to automate telephone support to reduce the number of calls
to live customer service representatives and average handle times. The fact
that the telephone is still the primary method of delivering support is often
overlooked by traditional electronic offerings. However, with Motive,
outsourcers can now use a fully automated approach to troubleshooting and
problem resolution. Together, SmartCall and Desktop SmartSupport allow
outsourcers to impact 100 percent of their customers' end-users with one
comprehensive service offering.
"Our outsourcer customers have made their desktop support priorities clear
to
us," said Scott Abel, executive vice president at Motive. "They have asked us
to help them reduce their customers' up-front commitment requirements, in
terms of cost and deployment complexity. They have asked us to make it easier
for their customers to realize value from support automation, regardless of
service channel, and they have asked us to prove our commitment to them as a
trustworthy partner. This new solution allows us to deliver on all three
fronts."
On Demand Deployment
Leveraging advances in native end-point instrumentation, such as
Microsoft's
Windows Installer Service, Desktop SmartSupport now offers outsourcers a
lightweight option readying desktop users for electronic support without
requiring a large "footprint," constant updates or frequent maintenance. This
means outsourcers can quickly scale their desktop support solutions to large
numbers of desktops, or have the option to deploy support on an as-needed
basis, through on-demand options, rather than mass updates with a large
upfront investment.
"The Microsoft Windows Installer Service improves the manageability of
Windows
environments by enabling automated installation and un-installation of
applications along with the ability to automatically repair damaged
application installations," said Glenn Pereira, product manager in the Windows
Server Group at Microsoft Corporation. "By using the Windows Installer Service
to protect and repair applications, Desktop SmartSupport helps Motive address
its customers' needs for a resilient, lower cost solution."
On Demand Use
Motive's Desktop SmartSupport and SmartCall can access centralized
information
from backend systems, such as knowledge bases and entitlement tools, to
optimize the entire support process, regardless of whether communication is
online or via telephone. In the past, companies have had limited success with
electronic support solutions because end user adoption was low, and the
telephone has remained the most common method for end users to submit service
requests. With Motive's combination of online and phone call support, a
company can expect to more than double adoption and automate the full cycle of
support. Through both methods, outsourcers can deliver better service with
decreased support costs and higher self-service rates, as well as shorter
average handle times.
On Demand Pricing
Since Motive's software gives outsourcers the agility to rapidly deploy
desktop support services, those services can be priced on an as-used basis.
This transforms existing desktop support business models that lock outsourcers
into bulk pricing, allowing for new options to competitively price desktop
support, particularly as competitors' outsourcing contracts come up for
renewal.
Motive's enhanced desktop support offerings are available immediately. For
more information, visit www.motive.com.
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