The B100, released a little over a year ago, is Bomgar’s remote access/support solution for IT companies that only need one concurrent support rep. We designed it so that an individual could create a virtual online support presence. [Why limit this to only big companies, right?]

If a support rep can virtualize himself, he can overcome geographical limitations [driving, on-site visits] and help more people. Well, some Bomgar customers have found that to be a powerful value proposition. Here’s a testimonial from Liwicom, a B100 owner in Austria.

I just wanted to tell you that we are extremely satisfied with the B100 Appliance. It just works and we can perfectly customize it to our needs. We haven’t had a single case were we weren’t able to get a reliable connection. We were working over a broad range of internet connections starting from UMTS and EDGE mobile connections to classical broadband over a variety of firewall systems. Client side was from Mac OS X various versions to Windows in all incarnations including servers. The Jump Client feature is a real goodie for server maintenance we didn’t realize we would get it when we bought the appliance.

P.S. I’m finding that archived emails are a good place to go for overcoming writer’s block. Especially, if you can quote from the email for most of your content! ;-)

We have really smart customers. Let me take up a blog post to point out one example.

A while back, Chuck Deaton, IT Security Manager at Humana, joined us for an SSPA webcast entitled “Remote Support: How Secure Are You?”

Among the nuggets of wisdom in that hour was this one from Chuck Deaton: “Complexity is inversely proportional to security.” Deaton goes on to explain that for Humana, often the security question is not about how to keep hackers out, but how to give authorized users the ability to perform authorized tasks.

Humana’s answer to the problem, at least in part, has been to simplify access and control as much as they can. Deaton says,

“. . . you can have the most hardened system in the world, but if it has too many moving parts and pieces, it won’t take very long for it to become unsecure or unreliable. And so therefore, we try to keep things - and remote control’s one of those - we try to keep those solution sets as simple as possible in terms of the moving pieces and parts, also in terms of the number of people and companies that are involved, so that we can maximize our security potential, not only initially, but also throughout - ongoing throughout the use of the technology by various user communities. So the - this whole idea of the ratio of complexity and security is really how we size up our ability to secure information assets or systems in general.”

Chuck Deaton, IT Security Manager at Humana

Here’s an example: You can set user permissions in one place, LDAP for instance, and have those permissions apply for various applications. Doing that will better enable you to maintain security over time. If user permissions are localized, rather than centralized, you’re likely to run into a security issue when one user’s overarching permissions fail to apply to a specific application.

Simple is better. One place to set user access and control permissions.

Deaton has, of course, taken a TON of other measures to ensure security. I just wanted to point out the simple-is-better approach as a stroke of genius.

In 2007 we introduced a new functionality called Jump Technology to the Bomgar Box. In a nutshell, Jump gives support reps clientless remote access to unattended systems.

Unique to our licensing model is the concept of concurrency. From the research I’ve done, all of our competitors sell named software seats. That means if Joe works in the morning and Bill in the afternoon, you still have to have a separate license for each of them. We just ask how many reps will need access to the licenses at any given time.

Another unique approach we’ve taken is to have remote access baked into the core product. If you were a GoToAssist™ customer, for instance, and you wanted to control your web server, you’d have to buy GoToMyPC™ – Two different products; two different interfaces. With Bomgar, you can move seamlessly from remote support to remote access and back again. With our multi-session control, you can even check on your server while you wait for the progress bar to move on another remote desktop.

I ran across an interesting article today by Eric Lundquist of eWeek. In this article, titled "SAAS Route Could be Bumpy", Lundquist points out what should be (but apparently is not) obvious: that the SaaS model requires a lot of investment dollars just to keep the lights on, much less provide innovative new functionality to customers. Capital spending on data centers and other infrastructure puts a major damper on the recurring revenue model of SaaS providers. The logical implications of this fact are even more depressing. If the SaaS provider has to pay more, then its customers will have to pay more – simple as that. It is extremely hard to cheat math.

Companies have been switching to SaaS ostensibly to save money over server software. Server software was becoming far too complex and required too much maintenance, and this complexity was costing companies millions. SaaS moved the complexity to the vendor, but, as evidenced by massive capital spending, did nothing to reduce it. The cost of complexity just gets passed on to the customer. This means that when the wheel comes full circle, the customer may have gotten out of dealing with the problem, but he still has to pay for it in the end.

Originally posted on February 28, 2007

Nathan McNeill Comments on DEMO 07 Technologies

eJamming and the Importance of Context

This product enables musicians to “jam” with each other online in perfect sync. I highlight this product as an example of practical innovation. Innovations fall in basically two categories:

1.                  Innovations that change the nature of how we live, work, play, etc.

2.                  Innovations that change the context in which we live, work, and play.

eJamming is a great example of a product in the second category. Musicians have been playing together for thousands of years, and what eJamming offers does not promise to change the basic dynamic of musical interaction. What it does do, however, is extend the geographical boundaries within which that interaction can take place. Same instruments, same keys, same notes, same types of people, different context. This subtle change in context can have small implications (two band members spend an hour and a half practicing together vs. half an hour practicing and an hour driving), and huge implications (a Mongolian drummer jamming with a guitarist from LA).

I believe that this type of innovation is generally underrated until it becomes a cultural phenomenon. YouTube, eBay, Amazon, and many other companies did not change the nature of how we live, but shifted its context. Home video, auctions, and books were hardly new, but these innovations created a new context for each, sparking renewed consumer interest, and huge business opportunities.

Would-be entrepreneurs should take note. Many CPU cycles can be wasted trying to come up with something that changes the way people live when the same creative energy could be put into simply watching how people already live and coming up with a way to extend or enhance it…to change its context.

First posted on February 21, 2007

More Comments to Come from Nathan McNeill

Too Little Too Late

I have officially given up trying to blog about each and every company that I saw at DEMO 07. I have gotten about halfway through the 70 companies, and run out of time and energy. I’ll continue to comment on the latter half of the list on a much more selective basis.