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A Web Conferencing, Remote Support, Remote Access, and Current Events Blog

Archive for the ‘Remote Support’ category

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

Business Web conferencing to Grow Exponentially over the Next 5 Years

June 23rd, 2011

Ovum and Cisco have recently released reports stating that business video conferencing will be growing exponentially over the next five years.

The Ovum report focuses on the Asia-Pacific region and it forecasts that video conferencing will become a US$804 million business in the region with an estimate compound annual growth rate of 7.84% between 2011 and 2016. According to the report, the two major video conferencing markets will be India and China with a 16% growth each.

“Enterprises are seizing the huge opportunity that video conferencing offers them to cut costs and improve productivity by reducing business travel,” stated Richard Thurston, Ovum analyst and author of the report.

“They are starting to use video conferencing much more frequently because of ongoing economic concerns, continued efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, enhancements in video technology and price reductions that are improving the business case.”

“The next five years will see solid increases in expenditure from businesses in Asia-Pacific, partly because of their already high expenditure on long-distance air travel,” he added.

Another report, Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, which analyses and forecasts global IP traffic, states that global IP traffic will grow four times over the course of the next four years with internet reaching three billion users and with 15 billion devices connected to the web. According to this report, business web conferencing will grow 6 times from 2010 to 2015, which means that video conferencing is growing faster than IP traffic.

This means that, without a doubt, video conferencing will be growing exponentially over the course of the next five years. With this growth many companies will be looking for the right video conferencing provider and providers will be competing for a growing market. It also means that managers and CEOs must be well informed on the devices they’re looking to buy.

RHUB’s TurboMeeting appliance is one of the best in the market. It is not only fast and reliable but also offers top security measures to keep all the data safe. TurboMeeting was designed to offer companies everything they need for real-time collaborations. It is easy to use and to install, not asking attendees to download any software. Once installed, it updates the firmware automatically and doesn’t need any IT maintenance and it can be used in Windows, Mac, and Linux.

As the flexibility is becoming the key for the success of business in a global market, managers will hardly miss this opportunity to expand globally while reduce business expenses by adopting remote collaboration tools. RHUB’s full featured appliance, one of the best in the market with both web conferencing and remote support functionalities, is very promising to conquer a growing market.

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

Virtualization as One of the Keys to Economic Recovery

June 21st, 2011

Things are not looking very good for global economy right now. On one hand there is an oil crisis which affects prices on most commodities and has vast repercussions on the industrial sector, on the other there is another crisis in Europe, the US most faithful friend, which affects deeply the American import/export sectors, slowing down growth and crippling the economy. All of this has two consequences: increasing the unemployment rate and decreasing confidence, making people cut on spending which further cripples the economy.

The latest Gallup index, which measured the confidence of the American people, shows that confidence went down by 9% in just two weeks. According to a Gallup survey, 70% said that the economy was getting worse and 47% said the economy was poor.

Another report, this time from the National Federation of Independent Business, found out that small business are refraining from hiring as a way to cut back on spending. In fact, this same report states that in May there were more business planning to decrease payrolls than increasing them.

This only shows that businesses are looking for ways to cut their spending and many still see laying off as one of the most effective ways to do this. In the face of the current situation, it is normal that businesses are worried about surviving than growing.

But what many businesses don’t realize is that there are other ways to curb spending and one of these ways is to restructure their practices and operations. As times are changing, so is technology. Practices that in the good old days could be done by physical presence are now possible to be done virtually, saving the costs and time that the physical practices required.

RHUB conferencing and remote support appliances can help restructure many business practices and virtualize operations, reducing business expenses. RHUB appliances have four applications: web conferencing, remote support, remote access and web seminar.

Web conferencing allows companies to meet in a virtual environment thus cutting on costs of travel, including gas, hotels, etc. It also saves time and allows people in different parts of the world to participate from their local offices. Web conferencing is perfect to discuss business practices, collaborate interactively in the same project, make sales presentations, etc.

Remote support allows companies to give remotely PC and Mac support to their clients. This saves the costs of the dislocation to the clients house to work directly on his computer and also saves the time of the travel.

Remote access allows workers to access their office computers from anywhere and anytime, meaning that they always have access to their work. With remote access function, employees can work directly from home and to solve any problem or question that might arise when they are not present, making them more productive.

Web seminar allows workers to attend a seminar to improve their working practices without leaving the comfort of their offices. This saves time and money on the travels and it also saves the costs of renting the required space for giving the seminars.

In an age where small businesses are fighting for their survival, virtualization of their business operations might be the key to their success. All that is required is a shift in the frame of mind of managers and CEOs and a small investment that in a short time will pay itself many times over.

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Posted in RHUB News, Remote Access, Remote Support, Web Conferencing, Web Seminars

Web Collaboration market will reach $20 Billion in four years

June 7th, 2011

According to a new report called “ Global Team Collaboration Software & Audio, Video, Web Conferencing Solutions Market” by MarketsandMarkets, the web conferencing market will reach $19.97 billion by 2015, meaning a 10.4% compound annual growth rate.

The report states that behind this exponential growth is that managers have started to realize that collaboration and web conferencing tools increase employee and business productivity. In the future, according to MarketsandMarkets, increasing productivity and cost control will determine how web conferencing software and appliances will evolve.

These tools and appliances already play an important role in businesses around the world but it is a market with an exponential growth capability. With many companies looking forward to expanding globally, web conferencing tools are the solution to overcome distances and time zones, bringing people together to work collaboratively in real time. Collaborative remote support appliances are also great to train employees and to supervise their work, allowing an employer to train and manage a team on the other side of the world.

With this exponential growth it is expected that over the next few years remote working and web conferencing systems will change the landscape of the traditional working environments. Companies with implemented remote solutions will tend to grow faster and create more jobs becoming dominant in the markets they’re in.

Appliance-based Solution: Lower your cost of collaboration

The web conferencing market is divided into three different types of service delivery: hosted, software and appliance-based services. While hosted services are the most common service available, there are some companies who provide software, with appliance-based solutions being still relatively unknown to managers and IT professionals worldwide.

While still relatively unknown, the appliance-based systems offer the most reliable web conferencing and remote collaboration solutions.

When comparing RHUB, the leading provider of web conferencing and remote support appliances, with hosted services like WebEx, Citrix and LogMeIn, it is noticeable the RHUB’s appliance is a better solution for companies than the others because it offers more features and better quality. For example, the image quality is better over an appliance-based web conference than at a hosted solution, the same with audio in VoIP. Security wise the appliance is also a better product offering firewall protection for internal meetings and an SSL & Proprietary transmission security. RHUB’s appliance also allows to monitor employee desktops and has an unlimited number of users who can host meetings.

With the market growth with a 10.4% annual growth rate, it is expected that managers will be looking for the better solutions to implement in their companies and so it is anticipated that appliance-based systems such as RHUB will grow over the competition.