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Archive for the ‘Remote Support’ category

Technology is Seen in the Local Public Sector as a Way to Reduce Costs

February 3rd, 2012

Technology’s role in the public sector is becoming more important, shows the latest Socitm IT Trends report.

According to the report, while technology has always played an important in the public sector, its importance is now growing. The main reason is that it is starting to be seen, by council managers, as a way to reduce costs and expenses, since they are under pressure to bring operational costs down and to make the best with their tight budgets.

This, according to the report, has had another consequence: the influence of IT managers is growing as well.

“The influence of ICT continues to rise as more services are directly delivered through lower cost ICT-assisted channels. Technology is also helping reduce accommodation costs as the workforce becomes more mobile,” said Glyn Evans, Socitm President.

“However, with greater dependence on ICT, organizations must ensure processes and procedures are kept up to date, and greater attention is paid to accuracy, provenance and security of information,” he added.

The report shows that spending on contract services will increase and that organizations are making their employees more mobile, allowing them to work from home and to use their own devices at work.

The top five technologies to be adopted by organizations are mobile computing and telecommuting, virtualization, GIS, e-forms, and content management. With the top efficiency programs being self-service, shared services, remote working, document management, and virtualization.

The report also shows that the major shift has been in remote working. While three years ago the idea of allowing employees to use their home equipment to work was frowned upon, now over 90% of respondents have declared themselves happy to allow their workforce to use their home PCs to remote access their office computers.

Hosted web services are also becoming a major concern for IT managers, as well as network and data security. Appliances, such as RHUB 6-in-1 TurboMeeting (named as the Product of Year by Government Computer News recently) are often the best alternative to web hosted solutions, since appliances are cheaper and offer a higher level of security than the hosted ones.

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Posted in Remote Access, Remote Support

Tags: Remote Access

Virginia Offers Tax Breaks to Promote Remote Work

January 12th, 2012

Virginia officials have recently announced tax breaks for companies who set up remote work systems for their employees. The law will give companies $1,200 in tax credits per employee for expenses related to telecommuting, up to $50,000. Expenses concern needed equipment, such as modems, computers, internet connections and remote working systems such as remote desktop solutions or web collaboration tools.

These benefits will be offered to Virginia companies who implement telecommuting starting the 1^st January 2012. With this new law, state officials expect to reduce Virginia’s transportation problems by encouraging companies to keep their employees at home.

According to Fairfaz County Supervisor Jeff McKay, D-Lee, “it’s a lot more inexpensive to deal with our transportation problem than it is to just keep building roads.”

But it’s about more than just roads, it’s also about making employees happy and helping the environment.

“I have seen personally the benefits of telecommuting, and I think we should replicate that throughout Northern Virginia,” stated Del. Mark Keam, D-Vienna, who is backing the law.

“It’s had a tremendous benefit to us personally, because the fact that my wife doesn’t have to travel to Alexandria every day means she can be here when the kids get home from school,” he added.

These tax breaks make of Virginia one of the few states in the U.S. that actively supports and encourages remote working.

“Virginia’s been ahead of the game since Tim Kaine was governor, because he really was behind telework,” stated Chuck Wilsker, president of the Telework Coalition.

In the Washington area there are 600,000 that work remotely on occasion, with an extra 500,000 ready to start if their companies implement real-time collaboration systems and solutions which allow them to work from their homes.

With today’s technologies, remote work can be seamlessly implemented allowing employees to work from their homes as if they were in their offices. Web conferencing tools allow them to collaborate on the same project and remote access solutions allow them to access their office computers and networks from their home computers, granting them access to everything they might need to perform their work at the best of their capabilities.

Remote working solutions, such as RHUB 6-in-1 web conferencing and remote support appliance, give companies all they need to implement telecommuting and start taking advantage of the tax break their state offers them. These solutions have remote desktop and web meeting tools in the same package as well as integrated video conferencing and audio conferencing services which make communication much easier and clearer. RHUB is named a Best Product of 2011 by Government Computer News (GCN) because of its “excellent price, ease of setup and the fact that it fills a specific need.”

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Posted in Remote Access, Remote Support

Tags: Remote Access Remote Support

Appliance-based Computing: The Road to the Future

October 14th, 2011

We live in the time of the cloud. The word “cloud” seem to be everywhere and with it the promise of the cloud based products which often claim to be the future of software and hardware alike. On the other hand we also live in a time where most companies are fighting against insolvency, struggling for their cash flow and attempting to contain their costs to the best of their abilities while still looking for ways to grow and increase productivity.

Many of these companies saw in the “cloud” the holy land of low cost software and virtualized hardware and took the opportunity to renew their operations. But many, when taking a closer at their costs, have found out that cloud computing products and software-as-a-service solutions (SaaS) have higher costs than their appliance counterparts as well as increased security risks.

At a first glance SaaS solutions may seem more cost effective, but monthly fees soon turn into a never ending investment in a platform that is never really owned by the company, as opposed to an appliance solution, which requires a payment for a piece of technology that once paid is owned by its purchaser.

Appliance based solutions are also much easier to deploy than SaaS solutions because they circumvent problems like system requirements and the purchasing of additional hardware for the software to work. Appliance solutions are ready to be deployed and don’t require optimized hardware. They also don’t require professional services to install, integrate and maintain the software.

Appliance based solutions are also more secure to use that their SaaS counterparts. In the case of remote work or remote conferencing, SaaS solutions require the user to connect to a third party server, usually belonging to the software vendor. This third party server is completely out of the control of the solution users and one can never be sure who might be tapping into it or what kind protection it has against hacking intrusion.

With sensitive information on the line, an appliance solution offers its users much more control over potential security threats since one is in control of the servers used to connect the devices and through which the information passes.

Sometimes the best solutions for the future are those of the past. SaaS and cloud based solutions may offer an alternative but in the end the market belongs to the appliance solutions because of one simple detail: higher quality at lower costs.

RHUB’s 6-in-1 Turbomeeting solution is such an example. It offers remote conferencing and remote access in one single appliance, at low costs without requiring any maintenance or special deployment.

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Posted in Remote Access, Remote Support, Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing

Tags: Appliance

The U.S. IT market is Growing and so are the Buyers Expectations

July 5th, 2011

This year, IT companies are expecting to make most of their revenue from the U.S. market, a shift from previous years where most revenues came from the Chinese and Indian markets. The U.S. will also have the highest percentage of employment growth this year, says a survey by the audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG.

Buyers, according to a Computer Economics survey of 200 IT executives, are also planning to spend this year more than in the last year. The survey found out that that 60% of the respondents have the intention of increasing their operational budgets against 22% that expects to decrease them, 18% expecting to maintain their budgets.

The optimism in a recovery economy is even clearer when these numbers are compared with those of the year before in which 44% stated that they were expecting to reduce their operational budgets.

What can companies and buyers expect

In a scenario of economic recovery, companies can expect a higher level of competition. Buyers will need to find the better deals (those that offer a better price/quality ratio) and companies will have to produce better products at lower prices if they want to survive.

Buyers looking for the best deals and higher quality web conferencing and remote support appliances can expect to find them at RHUB. Not only RHUB offers the most secure products available in the market but it also offers the best deal, giving your four features, namely web conferencing, webinar, remote support and remote access, all in one box.

Most products available in the market are packaged software or hosted solutions, RHUB offers a buyers a third alternative: appliance based solution. RHUB’s appliances provide as a complete hardware and software bundled and pre-configured package that is easy to install, to use and that requires no maintenance. RHUB’s floating licensing only controls the concurrent number of meetings and participants, but there is no limit to the number of users who can host meetings. Moreover, RHUB appliances come with very easy integration with your LDAP to save your time from inputing every employee profile to the appliance.

RHUB’s appliances aren’t just great products. They are market leaders regarding quality and costs and have been recognized as one of the major players in the market.

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Posted in Remote Access, Remote Support

Tags: Appliance

Hosted Web Conferencing, Packaged Software, or Appliance?

June 30th, 2011

Most of the web conferencing products available in the market today are packaged software or hosted based (or SaaS) but there is another solution: web conferencing appliances. And while many companies are starting to use and understand the benefits of appliance based solutions, some others still don’t grasp what web conferencing appliances mean and what they can offer when compared with software and web-based products.

Hosted web conferencing products have two major downsides. One is security and the other is the cost. Hosted web conferencing services are the most insecure of the three because companies have no control over a third party server (where the product is hosted) and its security measures, making it very difficult to control if someone unwanted is listening to the conversation. Cost-wise is also more expensive in the long run because these services are usually priced per month or year, becoming an ongoing cost to the company. On the upside, hosted services are usually easy to use and are always updated.

Packaged software, being hosted by the company who owns it, is much more secure than hosted products but still has several costs attached to it. Usually software solution has high upfront total cost because you should have a dedicated computer to host it to avoid disruptions from other applications. In addition, software requires extensive time to setup and maintain.

The best solution is appliance based products. The upfront cost is low because you have got a complete hardware and software bundled and pre-configured package in appliance. So, you could save money from purchasing another dedicated computer. In addition, appliance is easier to deploy because most of appliances comes in as a plug-and-play mode and require no IT ongoing maintenance since the appliance would update itself. This is contrary to the common understanding, appliance only for IT professionals. If you could setup your own router, you should be able to setup it and never worry about the ongoing maintenance.

Appliances (and packaged software) are safer because it gives you much ehanced access security. As we all know, the weakest security point in web conferencing is access security. Every web conferencing system today uses meeting IDs and/or passwords as a simple access security measure to protect web meetings from unwanted attendance. However, the problem is that meeting IDs and passwords are usually emailed to attendees before scheduled meetings start. This process can easily compromise the access security. Your computer screen may be captured within seconds once a hacker intercepts. Once you realize you have been hacked, it is too late to close your meeting. The best way to protect against the security breaches described above is to use an on-premise appliance where you could choose your own way of appliance deployment and use firewall to protect your meetings. In addition, hosted web conference makes it is impossible to integrate with LDAP because of potential security risks.

Comparing the three types of web conferencing solutions, it is clear that appliance-based web conferencing is the best choice. These are not only the most secure, they are also cheaper in the long run and easier to deploy and maintain.

Today, many telephony and video conferencing appliances come with limited web conferencing functions. Certain security appliances such as those from Juniper include web conferencing option. However, as far as we know, RHUB Communications is the only vendor dedicated in delivering web conferencing appliances. Starting at $995, RHUB appliances are claimed to be paid off by 3 to 10 months of subscription fees compared with hosted services. After quick research, we tend to believe the claim.

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Posted in Remote Access, Remote Support, Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Web Seminars

Tags: Appliance

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