Remote Support for the Systems Integrator
View or Listen to this Bomgar™ Webcast:
August 15, 2006Download mp3 | Read Transcript
Justin Brock, Manager of eCommerce:
Good morning and welcome to today's webcast: Remote Control Support for the Systems Integrator and Value Added Reseller. My name is Justin Brock, manager of E-commerce here at BomgarTM. I would like thank each one of you for attending. We have a special treat for you today. Joel Bomgar, founder and CEO of BomgarTM will be discussing how Bomgar's technology can assist VARS and systems integrators with remote support with anecdotal evidence from his own experience as a systems integrator. Before we begin, you should be aware that we will have a Q&A period at the end of Joel's presentation. If you have a question at any time enter it in the field at the bottom left of your screen and click "submit questions". I will be collecting these throughout the presentation and I'll present them to Joel at the end. So, you don't need to wait to the end of the presentation to ask your questions. With that, Joel, I'd like to turn things over to you.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
All right Justin. Thank you so much. I do appreciate all of you attending. This is Remote Control Support for the Systems Integrator and VAR. Before we kick off here let me go to the next slide and talk a little bit about kind of my background. I wanted to touch on who we are as a company as well as my background in systems integration and working as VAR and working as a systems engineer for a VAR and how that led to the founding of BomgarTM.
A little bit about BomgarTM. First, the company was founded in June of 2003 so we're a little over three years old. The business we're in is remote support solutions which essentially is technology designed for enabling a tech support representative to gain remote control of virtually any computer anywhere in the world for the purposes of Remote Support. We have over 2,000 customers located in all 50 states and 30 countries internationally. They range in size from a one-man IT shop up to - we have a nice showing on the Fortune 500 as well from an enterprise perspective. Kind of a sweet spot between that is probably the systems integrators and VAARS defined as companies doing some type of outsourced IT support or support on behalf of another organization.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
As far as where we fit in the market, we have the third largest customer base in the remote support market and we are the only vendor in the remote support market that is exclusively focused on the needs of the support professional and the technology we need to provide them in order for them to do their job better. So, that is who we are as a company: Bomgar Corporation.
Next, real quick snapshot of who I am, my background, and what led me to start BomgarTM and be in the business we are currently in. I've been in IT and network engineering for about ten years. I spent about seven years in the Mississippi National Guard working part time. Also spent four years with Business Communications Incorporated. While there I did over 130 service calls, special projects, and just, you know, systems integrations type work, and logged over 500 hours of on-site IT support or network engineering. And, I've been founder and CEO of BomgarTM for three years.
During my time at BCI and just throughout my career I've done a lot in trying to further and advance my technical knowledge so accrued a number of certifications along the way as well. So, you have a background of - I want to talk about my experience at Business Communications Incorporated. BCI was a systems integrator and VAR and I worked there as a senior engineer. The experience there, the needs there, and the inability to find a solution on the market that met the unique needs of a systems integrator and VAR which essentially are the same needs you see in the enterprises as well as pretty much anybody doing support is - or the needs we experienced there and the inability to find a solution on the market that met those needs is really what led to the creation of BomgarTM and our Bomgar BoxTM. And, BomgarTM to be established specifically as an entity to market this technology and advance this technology for the support professional. But, because BCI was a pivotal point in that and because that is a great deal of my experience specifically related to the systems integrator and VAR, I wanted to talk through BCI as a case study because I think it lays a very good context to what many of you are probably experiencing in your day to day businesses. And again, these are the same challenges all the way from a one-man IT shop to a Fortune 500 company.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
BCI as a company was founded in 1993. They are a systems integrator and VAR. They do everything from network cabling, phone systems, systems integration, PC break fix, you name it for businesses and consumers as well as the government sector. They have over 100 employees. I was, during my time at BCI, those four years, I was one of about ten senior systems engineers that were doing the on site - or remote systems integration type work. They did work, again, across sectors and everything. The challenge that we faced at BCI, and again, this is the challenge that we as a systems integrator and VAR - the challenge we faced that led to the search for technology to solve this problem, and again, the inability to find that solution was what led us to develop the technology and develop Bomgar Corporation to develop that technology.
BCI is a company - the first need, there was really three primary needs. One, the need to provided instant support for our customers. We had probably about 500 active customers spread throughout the state of Mississippi in all 82 counties, and essentially because we were prior to implementing remote support technology, we were doing everything pretty much on site. It lead a lot of times to a situation where you had to have multiple projects in the same geographic area in order to send an engineer on site. And, maybe three little problems that none individually warrant an on site visit but, together, we'd send somebody out to one of the various parts of Mississippi.
But, of course, the customer doesn't like the standard answer of, "Maybe we can slide that in some time next Thursday." You know they have a problem now, it's inhibiting their ability to do their job, and they want a solution now regardless of where in the state they live. So, that was one of our first challenges is we have to be able to provide support and systems integration, systems engineering, to our customer base instantly. It does not work to wait until, you know, we've accrued a queue of issues in one specific area. The second was a need to cut mileage expense and engineer downtime. Mileage is - obviously when your engineers are spending 1/3 to 1/2 of their day on the road becomes incredibly expensive. And, with recent gas prices and all of those things, any type of travel becomes very expensive.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
Also, because BCI was a pretty advanced systems engineering firm, they put a big emphasis on training certifications and ensuring that every engineer of their staff was absolutely at the top peak of their ability to perform for their customer. Well, all of that systems engineering expertise is essentially useless during all the windshield time. When you're stuck in a traffic jam or spending 2 ½ hours going through back roads, all of what you know about systems engineering is essentially useless. And, that obviously costs BCI a lot of money and the down-time, non-billable time alone, obviously was a big component of the pain that we were experiencing that led to the search for a solution.
We were obviously as all systems integrators do using various pieces of remote control technology when it would work or when we had a VPN or anything like that, but really, when the existing solutions on the market did not meet the specific needs we had - and we'll talk about that more - and the ones that did meet the needs of being able to connect to any computer, anywhere in the world were cost prohibitive from a total cost of ownership perspective. It essentially would have eroded all of the benefits of implementing the technology in the first place as well as they lacked key functionality that, as a systems integrator, we knew we had to have to get the job done.
So, that's the quick background. Two other things - I threw up there a quick - what the heat looks like in the summer in Mississippi. It is absolutely incredibly hot. And, I'm still driving the same '79 Buick LaSabre that I drove back then to and from service calls. So, not only from a personal perspective, I didn't want to be on the road just due to the discomfort, but also my car starts to cool down about the time I arrived at a customer site. And, it burns an incredible amount of gas. So, two issues to add to the other needs we had as a systems integrator.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
When you look at what was already on the market, because essentially the needs we had led to the search for a solution. We had these needs. We need to respond instantly to customers' demands. We want to maximize our engineers' time and we need a solution that's not going to erode all of the productivity benefits by the sheer cost of the solution. So, we looked at the market and there was kind of - the first classification which is pretty much the technology that everyone's familiar with is LAN-based solutions. These are pcAnywhere, just numerous, numerous LAN-based solutions that all have - most of them have been on the market around a decade and they're all designed really for two computers in one local area network to - for one computer to connect to another computer after that computer has been pre-installed and pre-configured with a software client.
The problem was, obviously, first they required a software client. With 500 active customers in 82 counties and thousands, and thousands, and thousands of computers we may need to service, it was obviously not viable to pre-install any type of pre-installed solution in our situation at BCI. And, even if we had something with existing customers, every time we a new customer called with issues, we obviously did not have any infrastructure.
Second, even if we could have deployed that kind of infrastructure firewalls, routers, network address translation would have all prohibited us from actually using LAN based remote control technology at a customer site.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
So really, it put us in a bind of we can't deploy a software client. Even if we could it wouldn't be any use because, you know, obviously we tried to have a VPN infrastructure to the degree we could but with that kind of a customer base and constantly signing on new customers you just can't - you know, it's always hit or miss as to whether you have a VPN to the customer, whether you have the right passwords for that VPN, whether you have the right certificates in place and all of that to actually make it work. So, the solutions that were on the market that were not LAN-based were all ASP solutions. These were clientless remote control technology that worked through firewalls. So, technically it would fit the business requirements but it was cost prohibitive with monthly fees ranging from $300 to $400 per month per support rep which, when you looked at a team of ten engineers, you'd be talking about set up fees in the thousands of dollars as well as monthly fees ranging $3 - 4,000 per month. And, even though we knew this incident-based remote control technology could revolutionize the way we do business, obviously backing $3 - 4,000 a month out of the bottom line just to pay for the technology really didn't make any sense.
Also, the solutions already on the market lacked the ability to log in and log out of a remote machine and do a reboot/reconnect which, when you're doing troubleshooting, you're obviously - sometimes you need to log in as an administrator, switch user profiles, or even reboot the remote system. Well, when you're doing support of say a lawyer's desktop computer and he's billing $400.00 an hour, he is not going to sit there during the entire tech support session to get you logged back in every time your remote support technology gets disconnected. So, we had to have a solution that enabled us to stay connected or aromatically get connected after a reboot or after a log in/log out without any intervention from the end user. And, there was nothing, and still is nothing, on the market that would enable us to do that other than the features and functionality we ended up building into our own product.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
Also, with an ASP solution, you have to worry about vendor uptime, are they going to be, you know, the application is only online and available when the vendor is online. So, if they're down for some reason you're down as well. And again, the total cost of ownership really eliminated the cost savings benefit. So, we at BCI made the decision that we're going to build the technology internally because nothing existed on the market. After we built that technology it made our engineering staff so much more incredibly effective that I actually founded Bomgar Corporation to take that technology to market and BomgarTM has since grown, over the last three years, to be a significant player in that market specifically focused - we're completely separate obviously from BCI. No ties there other than that was my specific background. But, the technology was so compelling that Bomgar Corporation was started to take that technology to market and in three years we've accrued over 2,000 customers.
So, that's the quick background. To talk a little bit about the solution that is on the market that we brought to market because there was not another good solution, it is the BomgarTM product. It is an appliance-based product which means all of the technology is housed in the appliance. It's all you need. All the software's there. Every, all of it is secured in a pre-hardened security environment. Our technology is clientless meaning when an end user clicks a link it dynamically installs an applet during the session and then completely removes the applet at the end of the session. You do not have to deploy software, you do not have to do a roll out, you do not have to worry about managing passwords on preinstalled software on thousands of systems. It's clientless. It's on demand technology. It does work transparently through firewalls, proxy servers, network address translation routers, anything like that. Because of the way the connection is initiated, it doesn't matter where in the world or what kind of firewall the end user's behind and it doesn't matter what software they do or do not have on their system because the remote control technology - our remote control technology is installed on demand.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
It does enable you to do support for virtually any computer anywhere in the world in just a few seconds. That goes for a laptop in Tokyo, someone on a Wi-Fi hot spot to a guy in his home, you know, working from home in the morning, all the way to the cube dweller down the hall. The beauty of incident-based remote control technology is that it does not matter what computer that computer that person is using whether it's a business computer or their home computer. It doesn't matter where in the world they're located. What kind of firewall they're behind, you as a systems integrator, VAR, or even an enterprise have the capability of supporting whether it be employees, executives on the road, a customer base both consumers and business, it doesn't matter. Any computer, anywhere in the world in less than ten seconds. Our technology enables you to support those individuals.
Once you're connected, some of the capabilities: full screen keyboard and mouse control. And really, the goal is always put the tech support rep in the cockpit. It doesn't not make any sense for a tech support representative, systems engineer, or somebody in desktop support to be doing troubleshooting via the internet when - excuse me - in a phone only conversation. Walking the end user through complex technical issues doesn't make any sense. When you're essentially blindfolded you can't see what they're saying, you can't detect any of what your telling them to do, what effect it has. So, our technology puts the tech support rep in the cockpit. The end user can either sit back and enjoy the ride or go about their business doing something unrelated.
Full file transfer and chat - it also gives you the capabilities of doing a reboot/auto reconnect meaning the end user does not even have to be physically present in order for you to regain remote control after a reboot. You can also share the session, a remote control session, with other tech support reps on your staff or transfer a session completely to them if you need to escalate a session or perhaps add a shift change or something like that.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
We also give multi-session handling which means a tech support rep can be connected to multiple systems simultaneously. It's a tabbed interface so it's very easy for them to go move between the computer they're controlling and chatting with to the next one, to the next one. It gives them the capability of doing all of that simultaneously so they can stay productive even if say one system is installing Microsoft Office, it's gonna take 45 minutes, another system can be rebooting, they can be troubleshooting a third versus being on site and watching the progress bar for 45 minutes without the capability of really doing anything else.
Also, canned messages built in for frequently asked questions. All of those capabilities as well. From a security perspective. All our appliance - all communication to or from the appliance is 256 bit AES/SSL encrypted. All of the applets that are run during any session are all verisigned, digitally signed with a security certificate and the digital signature. So, those cannot be altered, they cannot carry any other payload other than that intended. All the web interfaces for the appliance are SSL encrypted. The appliance is pre-security hardened so you don't have to do that at your site. And, Symantec Corporation did a independent source code enabled penetration test of all of our technology which means essentially they test it in the real world environment looking for vulnerabilities but also then go line by line through the source code looking for anything that could present a security vulnerability in the future.
So, all those bases covered. How our technology works - real quick graphic for you there. Essentially, the Bomgar BoxTM resides at - in a central location. Typically it'll be the home office of the systems integrator and VAR, either their data center or their server room, or whatever. And, the tech support reps, systems engineers, or whoever their needs may be are able to start - to basically connect to that Bomgar BoxTM no matter where they are located and then start a session with a customer no matter where in the world that customer is located. So, it really doesn't matter for the support rep or the customer or end user where in the world they're located or what firewall they're behind. It absolutely doesn't matter. The connection is initiated by the support rep to the appliance and from the end user to the appliance as well so it's completely firewall and proxy compatible in all those scenarios.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
As far as the mechanics of how a session looks. The support rep monitors the queue. The queue tells them anytime someone tries to make a connection, establish a connection, and start a support session whether it's somebody they're on the phone or perhaps somebody that filled out a little ticket in the ticket interface on the web. And also, the support rep is able to chat with other representatives to collaborate; perhaps they're able to answer questions another rep is having as they troubleshoot an error message on another system. So, the support rep has their own rep interface that is also housed in the Bomgar BoxTM so it doesn't require any independent software or anything like that.
The user initiates a session, so the tech support rep logs in as a representative, as a systems engineer, whatever they may be. They instruct the user to go to a web interface where the user can start a support session. Typically that will be support.companyname.com. it can be any URL you want but that essentially will bring up a web - the public web interface on the Bomgar BoxTM. At that point they can initiate a session in one of three ways. They can either - if the company has chosen to allow their support reps to be visible they can actually click the name of a representative and immediately start a session that way. If you don't want the names of the representatives visible, then the support rep can generate a session key which they read to the customer via the phone or email the customer or end user. They then click the link or enter the session key and the session starts that way or the customer can go to, if this site is something that's publicly use for customer's to use support, they can actually go on there and enter a problem, enter whatever their issue is, and start a session that way.
Once the end user starts a session they immediately have a chat window that pops up on their system which gives them - excuse me - gives them all of the capabilities of chatting with the representative, sharing a file with them, or clicking the big "stop session" button which would completely discontinue the session and completely remove the applet from their system. All of the capabilities the end user needs are right there and the representative has the capability of chatting as well and requesting the ability to view a file.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
So, that kind of touches on that. As soon as the representative requests control, the customer clicks a link that says, "Yes, I grant permission to view my screen," and the support rep is immediately viewing that end user's screen. They have full keyboard/mouse control, file transfer, reboot/reconnect, all of that is available to them at that point including the ability to share that person's screen with another representative, the ability of troubleshooting three-five systems at one time and the tabbed interface, or sharing files, or chatting with that individual, maybe pushing a URL, or just chatting in whatever various ways.
At the end of the session, if the company using our product chooses to, they can have an end user feedback form displayed, and that's all housed again on the Bomgar BoxTM. And, at the end of every session that would ask the end user to rate their experience with the systems engineer or tech support rep, and also to enter comments. So, it's very easy for the manager to get a very solid feel for how people feel about this technology being used in the real world as well as how good of a job the representatives are doing at servicing the customer. Again this applies whether systems integrator, VAR, or a large enterprise where you have maybe dozens, and dozens, or hundreds of tech support representatives and you have help desk managers that can manage feedback as to how effective their reps are and whether the problems are resolved and that sort of thing.
The benefits by implementing this type of technology - these are the same benefits, again, BCI experienced and the same benefits that they are able to deliver as BomgarTM to all the other systems integrators, VARs, enterprises, you name it out there are the ability to connect effortlessly and on demand to any end user system that needs assistance. Again, permission must be granted by the end user but it gives them the capability of doing that. The support reps productivity is significantly increased anywhere from 5-50% reduction in what otherwise would be a phone only troubleshooting incident. So, versus what it would take to resolve phone only, you're talking at least 25-50% and for more complex issues you can be talking more like 75-90% less time than it takes to resolve an issue based on your ability to actually see what they're seeing and resolve the issue yourself.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
First call resolution goes way up. You don't have upset customers calling back saying so and so said they fixed it the last time when it's not really fixed. Obviously when you can view the screen and you are actually in control of the session it's very easy to see if an issue is resolved or not. Call handling times, we talked about that, are reduced. Travel time and expense is significantly reduced from having to go onsite every time. Ineffective phone support is eliminated because essentially you're not walking an end user through things over the phone anymore and the best part about BomgarTM is it's technology that you can own and host yourself. The Bomgar BoxTM can be installed at your location and it's entirely - the technology is entirely in your hands. You're not tied to an ASP for up time. You're not tied to an ASP for the security implications whether that be for just general security or compliance to government regulations. And, from a total cost of ownership perspective, you're able to break even and realize the significant ROI over time versus paying every month for this type of technology.
The results - I wanted to give a quote from one of our customers here with WechTech. It says - Keith says, "As network integrator in south Florida remote access for our clients is highly integral to the success of our business. After trying numerous software and hardware based access solutions, the Bomgar BoxTM was bar-none the best solution on the market. For over ten years customer service has been the key to my success. The Bomgar BoxTM allows my clients to connect to a technical support representative in less than ten seconds. You can't buy better customer service than that."
That's again, the experience that is echoed just by numerous of our customer base in that it enables them to serve their customer base better. It enables them to be more profitable, to bill more time and to better utilize the resources they have, systems engineers and tech support representatives.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
While I was at BCI, the personal experience I benefited from is a lot less travel time. So, I was able to spend a lot more time resolving issues, less wear on my '79 Buick LaSabre, same car I still drive, a lot less frustration by - for both the tech support representative as well as the end user. Typical phone-only tech support is frustrating for both parties just due to the loss in communication. A lot more billable time from the ability to control multiple system simultaneously as well as the ability to bill a lot more of an eight-hour day versus 2/12, 3, 4 hours being taken up on travel time - non billable travel time.
And, out of our 2,000 plus customers, 1,000 of them are systems integrators and VARs. So, this type of technology is clearly a perfect fit for the systems integrator and VAR due to the fact that, again, it does not require pre-installed software client and that it works through any firewall. Overall what that means for our customer base - our 2,000 customers do over 25,000 remote control sessions every day using our technology. So, you're talking - that's over - you're talking over half a million sessions a month of people who are experiencing less drive time, less frustration, a lot more billable time - again, that's happening 25,000 times a day as our customers support their end users.
So, that kind of wraps it up as far as BomgarTM, who we are as a company, the background of my experiences at BCI which led me to start the company and the phenomenal growth we've experienced of the company marketing this technology. We also talked about, from a quick summary perspective, the security and compliance benefits of being able to house this technology yourself, the total cost of ownership benefits of having the solution in house. We talked through kind of the ease of use of the end user interface and just how easy it is to get connected, ten seconds or less, and some of the key features such as reboot/auto reconnect which is, again, a feature that we feel is critical for the - in order to enable a tech support representative or systems integrator to truly be effective.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
So, that kind of outlines what incident-based remote control technology can do for the systems integrator and I wanted to open up questions for - I'll turn it over to Justin at this point to ask a few questions and I'll take them as they come. Again, if you have any questions, please enter them. Justin can work through those and we'll knock out as many as we can. So, Justin, with that I will turn it over to you. What do we have for questions.
Justin Brock, Manager of eCommerce:
Thank you Joel. The first one I'd like to send your way. You mentioned remote - I mean reconnect on reboot. How does the technician request this or how is this process accomplished?
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
Good question. Basically, the core difference in our technology versus all the other technology on the market is, for those technical of you out there, it runs as a system service versus an application. A systems service is the core component of Windows that run even when no user is logged in. applications, such as anything that's browser based, or java based, or anything like that, runs only when a user is actively logged in. Because Bomgar's technology runs as a systems service, essentially, as soon as you start a session with an end user the - our technology is running as a systems service which means if you want to log out, all you have to do is click start, log out. You'll log out. You'll log in as a different user. Now, as soon as you click log out, with anything that is not systems service based, you would immediately lose that remote control session. Again, with BomgarTM because it's a systems service it stays running even when a user logs out. As far as a reboot, again, because the fact that you're in a remote control session as an end user means it is running as a systems service all you have to do for a reboot/reconnect is basically just click start/shut down. You'll see the screen go black during the initial boot process, and as soon as Windows loads, it will immediately give you back remote control even prior to the log in prompt.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
A couple unique things about this is because we are systems service based, our systems service, the BomgarTM systems service is the last systems service to shut down on a shut down and the first to start up after the reboot which means if some other application hangs the reboot process, you're still going to be connected and able to do an end task or whatever on that application to enable the shut down to happen. So, we are the last system service to shut down and the first one to start up which meant you're going to be seeing that remote screen immediately after the reboot even while it's going through the network settings and configuring the system to get ready to display the log in prompt. So, again, you get remote control prior to the log in prompt and it's all because our product is systems service based. So, that is a key thing to look for when you're looking for technology - incident based remote control technology because if it's not systems service based, then as soon as you log out or as soon as you do a reboot, you're going to lose that session and the end user must be present to reconnect.
Now, if you're looking at other competitors on the market, make sure you find out is - some of them advertise reboot/reconnect but the end user must be present to initiate the session. So, it really does not give you any benefit versus just starting the session from scratch. Again, versus our technology where the end user could be in a meeting, they don't even have to be on the other end of the connection to enable you to do that. So, I hope that answers that question. What do we have next Justin?
Justin Brock, Manager of eCommerce:
Well, I kinda wanted a little bit of development on that question. Does it always install as a systems service and, if not, can you modify the rights on a remote machine?
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
Good question. Let me walk through that. Our application, our technology is going to dynamically detect what level of rights the end user has. As many of you know, if a user is running as a standard user without administrative rights to their system, by default, it will not allow systems services to run. What you can do in that - basically our technology when you first connect will detect whether they have user level rights, power level rights, or administrative rights to their local system. Obviously they're not going to have any rights to the network beyond user level rights, but, whether they have rights to their local system. If it is user or power user rights, our application will initially run in application mode but it will give you the option, there's a button on the representative interface, that you can click that will ask you for administrative credentials to that machine. As soon as you enter administrative credentials it will switch from application mode to systems service mode.
Now, if the end user is already a systems admin of their local machine, then it will run as a systems service from the beginning. So, you're gonna see the end user's remote control screen regardless of what level of rights they have. User level, power user, or administrative rights. If you want to do a log in/log out or reboot/reconnect it will need to be running as a systems service which, if they are not local admin by default, all you have to do is click a button, it prompts for administrative credentials, you enter those real quick, and it immediately switches to a systems service and then enables all of that functionality.
Justin Brock, Manager of eCommerce:
Thank you Joel. Another question. How do you overcome customer's concerns about security when you're connecting to them remotely?
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
Good question. Some people ask this. Honestly it's much more of an issue when people are initially evaluating it. They anticipate that this is going to be a sticking point with the customer and in reality it almost never is. For a couple of reasons - there's a couple of things you can look at. One, typically when you're doing tech support as a systems integrator, VAR, or even an enterprise, the individual you are doing troubleshooting for has requested support from your company proactively. Meaning, you're already a trusted provider, you already do some type of work for them or they're accustomed to calling you as an entity to receive support. So, there's already a trust relationship involved with that. Secondly, this session has to be initiated by the end user so they know that they are actively clicking a link. They are actively granting permission. Every stage of that they are prompted to make sure that that is what they want to do. So, it's very clear that the control's in their hands.
Also, during the session, the end user has overriding keyboard and mouse control which means, if at any point they start feeling uncomfortable about this individual that's connected, all they have to do is touch the mouse or the keyboard and it immediately - their interaction with the compute overrides the support rep's interaction with the computer. Also, at the end of the session, and again, the customer can always click the big stop session button at any time during the session. So, that's always available to them if they start to get uncomfortable. At the end of the session our application is completely removed from the remote system and it prompts them - it says basically all traces of BomgarTM have been removed from your computer. No support representative can access your computer without you proactively starting another support session.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
So, they know that every trace of our technology's gone. There's no files, there's no registry entry, there's no add or remove programs entries. So, essentially they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they don't have to worry about somebody logging into their system later. So, because of those things and because of our technology, just the inherent security built in with encryption and digitally signed applets, and all of those things, build a lot of security in. But, essentially when you come down to the trust relationship of the end user with the support technician and the trust relationship that's built there and all of the ways that we have put the end user in control if they want to be in control, it really alleviates that. And honestly, we have had almost no customers report to us that their end users or their customers have any issue once they implement the technology. It's something that's almost always a concern on the front end, but honestly once the customer has been supported once with this technology, they're gonna start asking, "Can't you just log into my system or something? That was so easy." And, they'll sometimes, even if they're not aware you have that capability ask, "You know, this is really frustrating doing phone only support. Is there not some way you can log in and do this yourself?" And, the answer with Bomgar's technology is yes you can. All you have to do is click a link. So, that typically alleviates that and it really does not present a problem. Most customers absolutely love it.
Justin Brock, Manager of eCommerce:
Thank you Joel. Changing gears a little bit. You spoke a little bit about when you were looking at solutions measuring the total cost and ROI of an ASP. Can you talk a little bit bout what ROI and efficiency gains could be expected from implementing the appliance-based technology from BomgarTM?
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
Yeah, let me - just to give you kind of some quick snapshots of what our customers are saying. Basically, as compared to phone-only support, basically if you're accustomed to doing support via the phone you're going to see an average call time drop of probably 25-50%. And, for complex issues that are, you know, more complex than say a software install or something like that, you're going to see even higher than that. So, from an ROI perspective you're not wasting time resolving incidents - excuse me - that are taking a lot longer than they other wise should be. So, you're looking at, again, 25-50% reduction in average call time for phone only support. Typically we've heard reports of around 70% reduction in the number of on site business and the number of support incidents that require escalation, meaning a second engineer has to be involved to resolve one issues which, for systems integrator is still really only billable. It's hard to justify a customer telling them that you know it took two people to solve a problem when it should have taken one. So, a 70% reduction on-site business and call escalation.
ROI - if you're looking at BomgarTM versus an ASP solution you're talking an ROI of typically always less than twelve months. So, within the first twelve months you're breaking even on the investment and you're, you know, you're able to benefit from that investment over time versus an ASP where you're paying continually every month for that. The ROI versus no solution at all versus phone only support is usually honestly almost instantaneous. You're talking the first 30 days, first 60 days when the productivity gains and the ability to gain more time of systems engineers or tech support representatives is able to pay for Bomgar's technology. So, versus phone only support you're talking about an almost immediate ROI versus an ASP or something like that. You're talking typically less sometimes than the first 12 months.
Justin Brock, Manager of eCommerce:
Thank you Joel. Is the technology able to support clients that use some operating system other than Windows.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
Good question. Currently we've been very close to the market trying to determine what the needs of the market are and how best we can serve those needs. Currently we support every platform of Windows. Everything from Windows '95, '98, ME all the way through Windows server 2003 and Vista as well. And, in the next probably 30 to 60 days we will probably also be supporting Macintosh as well. We've also really looked at supporting Linux. Honestly we've been in close touch with our customer base and really Linux as a - Linux on the desktop has not gotten to the point in the broad market where customers are saying that's something we need. Macintosh didn't used to be there but we're just getting to the point, especially kind of in the education markets, where you're starting to see a lot more Macintoshes. I would say, still the majority of our customer base says that they have either zero, or perhaps one or two Macintoshes and Linux is almost non-existent on the end user's desktop. Anyway, we support any platform of Windows. Shortly we'll support Macintosh as well and then Linux sometime beyond that as the market demands and as the need in the market dictates.
Justin Brock, Manager of eCommerce:
Okay. I think I'm going to do one more question Joel. And this one is the service configured to run in safe mode?
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
Yeah, let me field that one. Let me talk thorough safe mode. Safe mode by default does not allow any systems services to run. Now, our application does work in safe mode so in the situation where you need to be in safe mode, and this is universal for all vendors in the market, is that to get in safe mode, someone does have to be physically present on the remote system. They have to be present to press F8 during the startup process but also because when you enter safe mode, even though our system service is configured to run, Windows will not allow any systems services to run. But, anyway, as soon as you - you can boot into safe mode and immediately they can initiate a session as they otherwise would and it will immediately work in safe mode. So, quick answer to that one. Again, Windows does not allow a system services to run by default but that doesn't keep you as long as someone's physically present while you're in safe mode or at least when you start in safe mode as long as they're physically present to press F8 kickoff the session then you're set.
What you can do though is you can switch from - I believe if you're going from safe mode doing a reboot/reconnect back into normal mode because it is running as a systems service, when you go back into normal mode you can do a reboot/reconnect on that. So, that is how safe mode is handled.
Justin Brock, Manager of eCommerce:
Thank you Joel. We're running out of time and I would - I just want to let everyone know that we've got quite a number of unanswered questions. We will try to answer these via email over the course of the day. So, your questions will be answered. We thank everyone for attending today and Joel I thank you for presenting for us today.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
Thank you and I do appreciate as well. Thank you all of those in attendance and we're very pleased to be able to present this to you.
Justin Brock, Manager of eCommerce:
And, let me remind everyone that we will be doing these quite frequently and if you want to know when the next webcast will be just go to bomgar.com and we'll keep you updated. Thank you again and thank you Joel.
Joel Bomgar, Founder & CEO:
Thank you.