I’m having a discussion with some members of the SpiceWorks community about how many remote control tools you need to support everyone. I’m posting the question here because I think it’s worth inviting a broader audience to chime in.

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.

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The Future of the Enterprise Help Desk,
Part 3 of an Interview with Joel Bomgar

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

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The Future of the Enterprise Help Desk,
Part 2 of an Interview with 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

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The Future of the Enterprise Help Desk,
Part 1 of an Interview with 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

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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)