market analysis worldwide clientless remote support...

Filing Information: December 2009, IDC #220601, Volume: 1Mobile Enterprise Software: Market Analysis

M A R K E T A N A L Y S I S

W o r l d w i d e C l i e n t l e s s R e m o t e S u p p o r t S o f t w a r e 2 0 0 9 – 2 0 1 3 F o r e c a s t a n d A n a l y s i sMatt Healey Sean Ryan

I D C O P I N I O N

The worldwide market for clientless remote support software tools is expected to grow from $171 million in 2008 to $473 million in 2013 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.6%. As this is an emerging market, IDC expects strong growth levels to continue throughout the forecast period. The following are some key findings of the study:

External support is the largest market. Currently, organizations that are using clientless remote support software to support their own products form the largest segment of users, representing $79 million in revenue. However, the fastest-growing segment in this market comprises enterprises using this technology to support their internal employees. This segment is growing at a five-year CAGR of 40.6%.

The economic slowdown is expected to help this market. Clientless remote support software is expected to benefit from the economic slowdown because the deployment of this technology has the ability to reduce the costs associated with providing support services.

Remote employees, skills shortage, and the consumer support markets are expected to be growth drivers. All of these forces are expected to drive the growth of this market. Remote employees and the coming skills shortage will mainly drive the use of the technology in the enterprises help desk, while the consumer support market will drive usage in the services provider market and for enterprises supporting their own technology.

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T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

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In This Study 1

Methodology ............................................................................................................................................. 1Clientless Remote Support Software Tools Market Definition .................................................................. 2

Situat ion Overview 2

Business Models....................................................................................................................................... 2Market Segments...................................................................................................................................... 3Market Share Leaders .............................................................................................................................. 4

Future Out look 6

Forecast and Assumptions ....................................................................................................................... 6Market Context ......................................................................................................................................... 14Vendor Profiles ......................................................................................................................................... 15

Essential Guidance 19

Actions to Consider: Advice for Vendors .................................................................................................. 19

Learn More 20

Related Research..................................................................................................................................... 20

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L I S T O F T A B L E S

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1 Worldwide Clientless Remote Support Software Revenue for the Top 5 Vendors, 2008 ............. 5

2 Key Forecast Assumptions for the Worldwide Clientless Remote Support Software Market, 2009–2013 ................................................................................................................................... 6

3 Worldwide Clientless Remote Support Tools Spending by Segment, 2008–2013 ....................... 12

4 Worldwide Clientless Remote Support Software Revenue, 2006–2013: Comparison of 2008 and 2009 Forecasts ..................................................................................................................... 15

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L I S T O F F I G U R E S

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1 Worldwide Clientless Remote Support Tools Revenue Share by Top 5 Vendor, 2008 ................ 5

2 Worldwide Clientless Remote Support Tools Spending, 2008–2013 ........................................... 12

3 Worldwide Clientless Remote Support Software Revenue, 2006–2013: Comparison of 2008 and 2009 Forecasts ..................................................................................................................... 15

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I N T H I S S T U D Y

This IDC study presents a five-year forecast for the worldwide clientless remote support software market for 2009–2013. The purpose of this study is to identify recent trends influencing the clientless remote support tools opportunity and discuss their impact on the worldwide five-year forecast. This study presents market sizing and five-year growth forecasts for the clientless remote support software tools market.

M e t h o d o l o g y

The forecast presented in this study represents IDC's best estimates and projections for 2009–2013 based on the following:

Reported and observed trends and events in 2008 and their predicted impact on the worldwide clientless remote support tools for the five-year period (The base year is 2008, and the forecast years are 2009–2013.)

Analyst predictions of future segment-specific developments, including the anticipated impacts of customer behavior, supplier actions, market competition, and relevant changes in the regulatory environment (These predictions are based on demand- and supply-side research conducted by IDC analysts on an ongoing basis in the form of interviews, surveys, case studies, and analysis of company and market data.)

An IDC-wide set of general economic and geopolitical assumptions

An IDC services–wide set of assumptions about the IT and business services industries

In addition, please note that this document is based on information obtained by IDC as of September 2009.

Note: All numbers in this document may not be exact due to rounding.

Historical Market Values and Exchange Rates

Historical market values presented here are as published in prior IDC documents based on the market taxonomies and current U.S. dollar exchange rates existing at the time the data was originally published. For markets other than the United States, these as-published values are therefore based on a different exchange rate each year.

Please refer to IDC's regional research studies containing historical forecasts for multiple countries for more accurate regional growth in local currencies. Note that this discussion applies only to historical values prior to 2008. 2008 and all future years areforecast at a constant exchange rate.

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C l i e n t l e s s R e m o t e S u p p o r t S o f t w a r e T o o l s M a r k e t D e f i n i t i o n

Clientless remote support software tools are software programs that allow one PC to stream the contents of its desktop to another PC via an Internet connection. These tools give IT support specialists the ability to remotely control PCs from any computer that can access the Web. Clientless remote support software tools differ from remote control software because they do not require client software to be pre-installed on the host machine to connect to the guest computer. They differ from remote access services solutions in that they have a specific set of functionality that is geared toward an IT professional. Clientless remote support software tools are commonly sold in a subscription model, although licensed software and hardware appliances are also available.

S I T U A T I O N O V E R V I E W

The economic conditions of 2008 and 2009 have made for a challenging selling environment for technology providers across the board. However, some sectors have fared better than others. The market for clientless remote support software is one such market, as declines in enterprise purchases and layoffs of IT staff have been offset by the need to equip the remaining help desk technicians with the tools to do more with less. Furthermore, SaaS-based solutions are well suited for such economic conditions because of their flexibility to quickly scale such solutions up and down to meet business cycles, without the need for a large up-front investment and deployment.

There are a number of drivers that have helped to stimulate the growth of clientless support services tools thus far. Over the past several years, the developed economies have seen a dramatic increase in the number of remote workers. This trend is accelerating as office-based workers are being given the flexibility to work from home a couple days a week.

In addition to the growth in remote employees, the coming skills shortage for IT professionals will also help drive this market.

In addition, growing markets such as the small and medium-sized business (SMB), SOHO, and consumer segments have an increased need for remote IT support. These groups usually have little or no IT infrastructure support, but they encounter the same frustrations that all PC and laptop users face from time to time.

B u s i n e s s M o d e l s

Today, clientless remote support software tools are offered in the business models discussed in the following sections.

Hosted Solutions

Most of the vendors in this market are providing the clientless remote support solution as a hosted application. In this business model, the customer or services provider

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pays a monthly or annual fee to the vendor for the rights to use the software. This approach has advantages for services providers that intend to use these tools to provide support to their customers because it does not require them to make a significant up-front investment in software or hardware. This model is also easy to scale, as the customer can just add more seats with the hosted software provider.

Software Solutions

Some vendors are offering the clientless remote support solution under a traditional software licensing model. This model offers advantages for customers that are interested in using this type of solution to support internal employees. Because the software is owned by the enterprise, it can be deployed behind the corporate firewall and thus help minimize some of the security concerns of the enterprise.

Hardware Solutions

The final model being used is a hardware model. In this model, the vendor provides the solution as an appliance that can be installed in a company's datacenter. This model avoids the need to install the software on a server but maintains the advantages of being behind the firewall.

M a r k e t S e g m e n t s

While clientless remote support software tools have a variety of uses, IDC has identified the three most common use cases.

External Support for Vendors' Product

Several tech vendors have recognized the potential of clientless remote support software products to help them provide a better support experience for their customers while reducing the cost of providing that support. For this segment, the main interest in the tool is cost reduction and customer retention. Vendors that are using the product this way are using it to support enterprises, SMBs, SOHOs, and consumers.

Services Providers Supporting Their Customers

In addition to vendors providing support for their customers, there are several third parties, or services providers, that are using clientless remote support software product to support their customers. This segment includes channel partners such as VARs supporting enterprises, retail organizations supporting consumers, and independent services providers that provide a range of services but do not resell products.

As clientless remote support software providers add support for mobile OS platforms such as BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android, iPhone, and others, a new market opportunity arises with mobile operators and other service providers that stand to enhance their support capabilities for such devices.

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IT Help Desks Support Enterprises' Employees

The final segment that has begun to adapt this solution is enterprise help desks that need to support their employees. This segment is facing the challenges associated with an emerging remote workforce and an IT skills shortage. These two forces are combining to create a situation where IT help desks need to continue to develop tools that will enable them to provide better support for their employees without increasing the costs associated with providing the support. For these enterprises, the clientless remote support solutions are a valuable tool. While this is potentially the largest segment for these tools, IDC believes that it is also one of the most difficult to penetrate. Enterprise help desks have been targeted with tools that claim to be able to increase efficiency and improve first-call resolution times for many years. In the past, these tools have often not fully addressed the problem and, as a result, the help desks have become a bit cynical toward the claims of vendors promising these things. To effectively gain market share in this segment, vendors will need to demonstrate the value of the tool.

Embedded Systems

In addition to the markets that IDC is tracking, we are also watching the embedded systems market; however, this market is not being broken out in this forecast. This market includes IT that has been embedded into other equipment that is not traditionally considered IT. For example, embedded systems would include IT systems that are being built into cars, such as the BMW iDrive system, or IT that is built into large manufacturing equipment. IDC believes that given the user base of these systems, having a built-in system that can connect to a technician that can remotely diagnose and resolve the IT-related issues could be a distinct advantage for equipment manufacturers. Further, the clientless nature of these tools make them appealing as they do not require any installed software and so they do not occupy the limited onboard IT resources. IDC will continue to track this market and may break out the forecast in future years.

M a r k e t S h a r e L e a d e r s

The top 5 clientless remote support software providers in 2008 are shown in Table 1 and Figure 1. In 2008, Citrix and WebEx were the number 1 and 2 market share leaders, respectively.

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T A B L E 1

W o r l d w i d e C l i e n t l e s s R e m o t e S u p p o r t S o f t w a r e R e v e n u e f o r t h e T o p 5 V e n d o r s , 2 0 0 8

Ranking Vendor Revenue ($M) Share (%)

1 Citrix 59.3 34.7

2 WebEx 53.4 31.3

3 Bomgar 21.0 12.3

4 LogMeIn 18.6 10.9

5 NTRglobal 7.5 4.4

Source: IDC, 2009

F I G U R E 1

W o r l d w i d e C l i e n t l e s s R e m o t e S u p p o r t T o o l s R e v e n u e S h a r e b y T o p 5 V e n d o r , 2 0 0 8

Other (6.5%)

NTRglobal (4.4%)

LogMeIn (10.9%)

Bomgar (12.3%)

WebEx (31.2%)

Citrix (34.7%)

Total = $170.9M

Source: IDC, 2009

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F U T U R E O U T L O O K

F o r e c a s t a n d A s s u m p t i o n s

Table 2 summarizes the set of macroeconomic and geopolitical assumptions that provide the context for the current IDC worldwide clientless remote support software tools market forecast.

T A B L E 2

K e y F o r e c a s t A s s u m p t i o n s f o r t h e W o r l d w i d e C l i e n t l e s s R e m o t e S u p p o r t S o f t w a r e M a r k e t , 2 0 0 9 – 2 0 1 3

Market Force IDC Assumption Impact

Accelerator/Inhibitor/Neutral

Certainty of Assumption

Macroeconomics

Economy Worldwide economic growth will be negative by at least 2% in 2009, although forecasting groups expect 2010 to be markedly better. We continue to see declines in economic forecasts, however. Since the beginning of the year, the economic forecast for world GDP growth in 2009 has fallen more than it did in the fourth quarter of 2008. As usual, we will take 0.5–1 standard deviation lower than the Consensus Economics forecast as our standard. Some highlights for 2009 are as follows: United States -3.0%, Western Europe -3.5%, and Japan -6.6%. This means that worldwide, the global economy will drop 2.3% in 2009 and grow 1.6% in 2010.

High. A down economy affects business and consumer confidence, availability of credit and private investment, and internal funding.

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T A B L E 2





Fiscal package stimulus

The economic stimulus plans enacted globally will have the effect of increasing consumer and business confidence but will have little impact on market demand or employment in 2009. More of the effects will be seen in 2010. Our assumption at this point is that these plans will bulwark the economy against getting worse than we expect, so we are not changing our basic assumption about GDP growth.

High. The stimulus packages follow in the footsteps of the fall banking system bailouts by stemming economic panic. They will not immediately jump-start the global economy after such a shock.

Crisis duration IDC assumes that the bailout plans and stimulus packages will continue to loosen credit but that housing prices (in the United States) won't start turning around until late 2009, if not 2010. This would put the turnaround into 2010, consistent with our GDP assumptions.

Moderate. The long duration of the global recession will impact all forms of corporate and consumer spending, including that for ICT.

Unemployment/job creation

Unemployment worldwide will creep up through 2009 but top out under 10% (last seen in the 1982 recession).

High. More employment drives more need for ICT infrastructure and is a lagging indicator of economic recovery; job creation should be accompanied by a willingness to invest in other areas.

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T A B L E 2





Exchange rates The financial crisis has reversed the fortunes of the dollar, which since January 2008 had first fallen 9% against the euro but is now 16% above where it was in January. It has traced a similar trajectory with the pound (GBP) but dropped against the yen. Given the U.S. budget and trade deficits, all indications are that the dollar will continue to lose value against most currencies over the long term; however, for the next year, it should remain strong, which will affect imports and exports. For the purpose of IT forecasts, IDC assumes no major impact on overall demand.

Moderate. A stable dollar makes it easier for vendors to manage supply lines and stabilizes the prices of imports and exports.

Technology/service developments

Convergence Convergence is a complex phenomenon working at many levels — convergence of the telephone network and the Internet; of communications and IT technologies; of consumer and enterprise technologies; and even of storage, routing, and processing in the datacenter. Of these, perhaps the most overarching is the convergence of voice, video, and data communications. IDC assumes that this convergence is a permanent phenomenon and that it will pick up pace as the decade wears on. One measure is that IDC expects 1.9 billion users on the Internet and 3 billion users of the phone network by 2012. The overlap will be significant.

High. Convergence will drive new competitive dynamics, offer new applications and functions to customers, and strain the legal and regulatory systems. It will also drive increased ICT spending.

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T A B L E 2





Software industry transformation

The software industry is going through a major transformation, including basic architecture (service-oriented architecture [SOA]), the way software is written (composite applications), and the way software is delivered (software as a service) and even funded (advertising based). IDC assumes that this transformation will take a decade but that it will, when done, allow for much faster and more dynamic delivery of software functionality.

Low. The new software creation and delivery models should allow for a quantum increase in the ability to deliver and integrate new software functionality to ICT systems. This should increase overall spending even as it lowers costs.

Service industry transformation

This is a long, slow process involving the rise of offshore IT services, the increased integration of IT services inside business services, and the advent of new service delivery models. Most firms have developed a multishoring capability and blended pricing model and are now working on ways to standardize on technologies and methodologies, deliver services online or in new form factors, invest in datacenters, and expand into business services. Despite the race to automate service creation and delivery, there is a looming talent shortage. The economic crisis will be good for outsourcing markets but bad for project-based services.

High. These trends portend new competitive dynamics in the industry — software and online services competing with traditional IT services — as well as new thresholds for delivery. Online delivery models and operational standardization, from new technologies to remote infrastructure services, will allow faster and more efficient translation of service labor to client deliverable.

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T A B L E 2





IT talent No constraints are envisioned, although spot shortages of technical specialties are appearing in the United States and Europe. India is also facing talent shortages as the offshore industry grows. Overall, IDC believes 35 million people are working either for IT companies (13 million) or as IT professionals in end-user companies (23 million) in the world. The supply is growing at 4% a year. Despite the negative growth of computer science graduates in the United States and Western Europe, IDC sees few problems in the next five years.

High. The availability and the skill level of talent have a direct impact on markets as diverse as network security and outsourcing. The availability may affect some markets or adoption rates, such as the development of SOA, but in general, there will be other, more immediate gating factors.

Distribution of talent

The swing to emerging geographies is evident. The number of scientists and engineers in the United States and Western Europe is falling compared with the number of scientists and engineers in China and India, while the growth in the number of IT-related employees in those countries is three times the world average.

High. The migration will increase the overhead costs of finding, recruiting, andmanaging talent from global pools. It should, however, also lower costs and may even lead to more innovation.

Hardware Hardware markets will be hit worse than software or service markets as a result of the changing economic outlook. IDC expects a 5–10% fall in worldwide spending in 2009.

Moderate. Hardware spending, about 40% of total IT spending, drives spending in software and services as well.

Software The software market will remain a mix of slow-growth and high-growth markets, but the overall market growth will drop to under 2% in 2009.

Low. Software spending, about 20% of total IT spending, can drive spending in both hardware and IT and business services.

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T A B L E 2





Services IT services will grow, but at an eclipsed rate, with increased outsourcing offsetting some of the losses from project-based services. IDC expects worldwide IT services spending growth of under 3% in 2009.

High. IT services spending can affect the rate of overall solution adoption as well as the migration to dynamic IT. It accounts for about 40% of IT spending.

Buying sentiment U.S. ICT buyers are still pessimistic, as evidenced by IDC's 2009 FutureScan Survey.There seems to be no irrational sentiment against ICT as there was several years ago, but buyers will adjust to economic reality.

Moderate. Buyer sentiment has long-term consequences for the approval of IT projects.

Legend: very low, low, moderate, high, very high

Source: IDC, 2009

IDC predicts the worldwide market for clientless remote support tools will grow from $171 million in 2008 to $473 million in 2013, representing a five-year CAGR of 22.6%. Within this forecast, currently, vendors using the tools to support external customers are the largest segment, representing $79 million in 2008. However, the internal help desk market represents the largest growth opportunity, with a five-year CAGR of 40.6%. See Table 3 and Figure 2 for additional details.

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T A B L E 3

W o r l d w i d e C l i e n t l e s s R e m o t e S u p p o r t T o o l s S p e n d i n g b y S e g m e n t , 2 0 0 8 – 2 0 1 3 ( $ M )

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 20132008–2013 CAGR (%)

External support 78.5 97.4 114.1 129.0 138.6 141.8 12.6

Services provider 62.8 88.1 103.0 129.0 150.8 167.8 21.7

Internal help desk 29.6 46.4 61.2 81.5 118.2 163.1 40.6

Total 170.9 232.0 278.4 339.6 407.5 472.7 22.6

Note: See Table 2 for key forecast assumptions.

Source: IDC, 2009

F I G U R E 2

W o r l d w i d e C l i e n t l e s s R e m o t e S u p p o r t T o o l s S p e n d i n g , 2 0 0 8 – 2 0 1 3

050

100150200250300350400450500

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

($M

)

External supportServices providerInternal help desk

Source: IDC, 2009

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In allocating revenue into the different categories, IDC considers the main reason the tool was purchased. In many cases, once the tools have been purchased, the enterprise will find additional uses for the tools.

Growth Drivers for Clientless Remote Support Services

IDC believes that the market for clientless remote support will grow at a CAGR of 22.6%. As mentioned, there are three main drivers of this growth. The first is an increasing need for enterprises to support remote employees. The second is the coming skills shortage and the impact that it will have on the enterprise IT departments. The third is the emergence of third parties that are supporting consumers. In the following sections, we will go into further detail on how trends in these market segments will continue to drive future growth for clientless remote support software.

Remote Workers

Increasingly, enterprises are hiring employees in remote locations and allowing office-based employees to work remotely all or some of the time. This trend can be seen in the growth of the remote access services market, which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 20.6% through 2012. No matter where employees are located or what kindof system they are working on (PC or laptop), they need access to the same corporate IT support resources.

When an employee is local to the IT department, if there is a problem, the IT staff can easily dispatch someone to fix it. However, when the employee is remote, that option becomes more difficult. As a result, the current common practice is to use traditional telephone support to support the PC. This is both time consuming and frustrating for the help desk technician. Thus, IDC believes that an increasing number of enterprises will begin to employ a remote control solution for their internal help desks to address these concerns. While a number of these solutions will be traditional remote control solutions that require the client device to have software preloaded, IDC believes that a larger percentage of new remote control solutions will be clientless due to ease of use. Further, a clientless solution does not require the IT department to install software on all currently deployed PCs, making it easier to implement. Finally, the clientless solutions are less likely to be negatively impacted by the end user, as there is no software left on the end-user PC after the remote control session is over.

Resource Constra ints

Over the past 12 months, the U.S. and world economies have been in a recession. In the United States, unemployment is, at the time of writing this study, approaching 10%. Most enterprises have undergone some layoff, and in many cases, these layoffs have included personnel on the IT help desk. During the economic downturn, these reductions had the immediate effect of stretching the IT help desk personnel as they were now required to do more with less. However, IDC believes that in the initial stages of the economic recovery, this situation will become more difficult for the IT help desk. Using world bank data, IDC correlated unemployment and GDP and found that in general, employment does not begin to pick up until at least two quarters after GDP has returned to growth (see Relationship Between Employment and GDP Growth and the Impact on IT Operations, IDC #220188, October 2009). However, it is

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during the initial stages of an economic recovery that enterprise shave the greatest opportunities to gain market share by being highly responsive to the changing economic environment. As a result, IDC believes there will be additional pressure on the internal and external help desk employees that can be best alleviated with advanced tools such as the clientless remote support tool.

Consumer Market

The consumer support services market has become even more price sensitive than it traditionally has been. The main driver for the increased price sensitivity has been the economic downturn. IDC does not believe that the pricing pressures in this market will reside in the near term as consumers are increasingly burdened by excessive debt and lower housing values. Because of this, while this market is currently underserved, IDC believes that the growth in this market will be less robust than in previous forecasts. However, IDC also believes that as the economy begins to recover and unemployment declines, this market will once again show significant growth potential.

IDC still believes that this market will be served by a combination of retail chains, ISPs, device manufacturers, and independent support providers. However, due to the highly price-sensitive nature of consumers, vendors need a low-cost method of providing services. Using remote support services tools provides these vendors with another tool to help accomplish that goal.

M a r k e t C o n t e x t

IDC is predicting stronger near-term growth in the clientless remote support software market than was predicted last year due to the economic slowdown. IDC believes that the economic slowdown will accelerate the deployment of these tools. During a slowdown or a recession, enterprises usually look for ways to reduce their costs. Generally, one of the main targets for cost reduction is the internal IT staff, specifically the support staff. However, enterprises need to ensure that they can continue to provide support for their employees after reducing the number of internal support staff. As a result, enterprises are interested in tools that can help increase the efficiency of the reaming support professionals. Tools like these can accomplish that task, and if vendors can demonstrate the value to enterprises, deployment of these tools will increase during the slowdown. Table 4 and Figure 3 show the comparison of this market with the previous forecast provided in Worldwide Clientless Remote Support Software 2008–2012 Forecast (IDC #213625, August 2008).

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T A B L E 4

W o r l d w i d e C l i e n t l e s s R e m o t e S u p p o r t S o f t w a r e R e v e n u e , 2 0 0 6 – 2 0 1 3 : C o m p a r i s o n o f 2 0 0 8 a n d 2 0 0 9 F o r e c a s t s ( $ M )

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

2009 forecast 100.9 126.1 170.9 232.0 278.4 339.6 407.5 472.7

2008 forecast 100.9 126.1 156.4 192.3 232.7 279.2 335.7 NA

Notes:See Worldwide Clientless Remote Support Software 2008–2012 Forecast (IDC #213625, August 2008) for prior forecast.Historical market values presented here are as published in prior IDC documents based on the market taxonomies and current U.S. dollar exchange rates existing at the time the data was originally published. For more details, see the Methodology section.

Source: IDC, 2009

F I G U R E 3

W o r l d w i d e C l i e n t l e s s R e m o t e S u p p o r t S o f t w a r e R e v e n u e , 2 0 0 6 – 2 0 1 3 : C o m p a r i s o n o f 2 0 0 8 a n d 2 0 0 9 F o r e c a s t s

050

100150200250300350400450500

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

($M

)

2009 forecast

2008 forecast

Source: IDC, 2009

V e n d o r P r o f i l e s

The emerging clientless remote support software market has attracted several competitors. IDC provides a brief overview of each of the competitors in the following sections.

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Bomgar

Founded in 2003 in Ridgeland, Mississippi, as NetworkStreaming, the company was renamed Bomgar Corp. in 2007. Bomgar has as its singular focus the clientless remote support software market. The company does not provide products for other markets, instead focusing only on the support services market. IDC believes that this singular focus will appeal to customers that are mainly interested in support solutions.

Bomgar offers three versions of its current Bomgar Box, each targeted at different market segments. The B100 is targeted at small, independent IT consultants that can use the product to support their clients. The B100 supports a maximum of five concurrent users. The B200 is targeted at the SMB market and enables up to 20 concurrent users. The target markets for this product include IT consultants, SIs, and VARs that are supporting their customers and SMBs that are geographically dispersed. The B300 is the enterprise-class device. It supports up to 300 concurrent users and is targeted at the large internal help desks of global companies. The solution can support both employees inside the firewall and external customers. In addition, Bomgar offers the B300v, which is a virtual appliance that can be deployed on an existing server. The B300v has the same software features as the traditional B300.

Bomgar's solution is offered as an appliance, so the solution can reside inside a customer's firewall, providing an added level of security when supporting end users that are also behind the firewall. Further, because the solution is an integrated appliance, Bomgar can provide a more robust level of security as it controls all the software loaded on the device and can ensure that the OS is maintained with the current security patches. The drawback to this solution is the addition of another appliance into the datacenter. Space and power are very important to datacenter managers and, as a result, they might not want another appliance in the datacenter. However, this drawback will be a greater concern in the large enterprise space than in the SMB/SOHO space. IDC believes that the main impact will be on the B300 model as that is the model targeting large enterprises (which have the greatest concern with power and cooling).

Cisco–WebEx

WebEx is one of the largest competitors in this market. The company offers a full suite of remote access and remote control products that address a wide range of markets, including online meetings, sales tools, training, and support. WebEx Support Center is the company's clientless remote support offering.

WebEx Support Center is designed for high-volume technical support operations. The WebACD Queue Manager feature of WebEx Support Center provides rules-based routing of customer requests based on availability, skill set, or seniority. The WebACD Manager Dashboard provides managers with the ability to keep track of technician activity and assess productivity. Support Center provides technicians with the ability to support multiple sessions and to chat with multiple technical support reps and multiple customers at the same time. Support Center also provides the ability to reboot and reconnect to existing sessions. Sessions can be enhanced with the integration of VoIP, videoconferencing and teleconferencing, as well as through integration with Remedy, salesforce.com, and other CRM applications.

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Citrix Online

Citrix Online, a division of Citrix Systems, was previously Expertcity and was acquired in 2004 by Citrix Systems. Citrix Online currently offers GoToMyPC, GoToAssist Corporate, GoToAssist Express, GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, GoToTraining Beta, and GoView Beta. In addition, Citrix Online offers conferencing and corporate audio services provisioned through Citrix Online Audio LLC. Citrix Online has been showing consistently strong growth and now represents 20% of Citrix Systems' revenue.

GoToAssist Corporate and GoToAssist Express are Citrix Online's remote support products. They are offered as a hosted or SaaS model that is easily scalable to geographically diverse sites. The company continues to ramp up its sales and marketing efforts globally to better address the growing market for clientless remote support services. As with most SaaS-based products, GoToAssist is primarily sold direct; however, Citrix Online has found that using a referral-based model has been successful in helping to boost channel sales as well.

In addition to having a solid reputation in the market for quality SaaS-based remote access, support, and collaboration offerings, Citrix Online has the added benefit of having the Citrix Systems brand name behind its products, which provides dedicated client services, 24 x 7 x 365 customer and technical support, and training. Finally, with the full product suite available, Citrix Online can bundle offerings to meet customers' needs.

In February 2009, after a beta launch, Citrix Online launched GoToAssist Express, a support tool for the SMB segment. GoToAssist Corporate is built for medium-sized and large teams. With the combined offering, Citrix Online offers the market's first full suite of clientless remote support solutions that meet the needs of individuals to large organizations. GoToAssist Express is offered for a flat fee and includes unlimited unattended support capability. GoToAssist Corporate pricing is based on the number of licenses purchased.

LogMeIn

LogMeIn is a provider of on-demand remote access, management, and support tools. The company was founded in 2003, with headquarters in Woburn, Massachusetts, and offices in Europe and Australia as well. LogMeIn became a publicly traded company on July 1, 2009. It now trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol LOGM. Further analysis of LogMeIn's IPO announcement can be found in LogMeIn Launches IPO Amid Tough Market Conditions (IDC #lcUS21915909, July 2009). LogMeIn has been exhibiting strong growth despite the global economic slowdown, with 92% year-over-year growth for 2008 and 73% growth for 1Q09. From a verticals standpoint, it has been gaining recent traction in education and healthcare. The company's early investment in remote support for converged mobile devices (commonly referred to as smartphones) has paved the way for significant market expansion for the company on the remote support side of its business. Its remote support solution, LogMeIn Rescue, is well suited for larger organizations with complex help desk requirements, but the company does have many small and medium-sized businesses using its Rescue product as well.

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Core product offerings for LogMeIn include LogMeIn Pro² as well as LogMeIn Free for remote access and LogMeIn Rescue (with an add-on for mobile devices) for clientless remote support software. However, it does also have other complimentary offerings including LogMeIn Ignition (direct, one-click remote access) and LogMeIn Ignition for the iPhone, LogMeIn Hamachi² (hosted VPN service), LogMeIn BackUp (automated file backup), Remotely Anywhere (remote control), and LogMeIn Central, a Web-based management console, which the company recently announced as a new offering for SMB IT providers (both internal and external). In the past nine months, LogMeIn has made enhancements to LogMeIn Rescue, its clientless remote support offering. In March, the company added key features geared toward the help desk, adding the ability for customer support technicians to collaborate with other technicians to solve difficult issues more quickly. LogMeIn also added screen sharing to allow a help desk technician to show end users how to fix the problem themselves and for ad hoc training. It also added technician monitoring for administrators to monitor a technician's machine to ensure quality. Last, it added a Web-based console to enable a level 1 technician for chat and then a level 2 technician for remote control.

LogMeIn has a noteworthy partnership with Intel, which allows LogMeIn Rescue to connect to the Intel vPro chip on the BIOS level for onboard diagnostics, remote booting of the device, and running of tools. In the absence of Rescue for vPro, if the OS will not boot, then the user would have to ship the PC for repairs. The Rescue add-on for vPro would eliminate this need if the problem was a software issue. LogMeIn has also been a market innovator in its support of mobile OS platforms, having supported Windows Mobile since December 2007, Symbian since February 2008, BlackBerry since November 2008, and demonstrating a technical preview of Android smartphone support in February 2009. The mobile add-on to LogMeIn Rescue was recently updated to enable the help desk provider to configure email settings and Bluetooth settings for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices.

NTRglobal

NTRglobal offers solutions for the IT services and desktop management markets, including remote support, remote administration, online collaboration, and remote access. The company was founded in 2000 with headquarters in Barcelona, Spain. NTRglobal serves over 17,000 companies across all of its product lines. It holds a market-leading position in Europe for clientless remote support software and is a notable player in the U.S. market as well. It is opening a sales office in China and will be making a serious push into that market.

NTRglobal clientless remote support products include NTRsupport Ultimate and its newly launched NTRsupport Pro. NTRsupport Pro was announced in July 2009 and is aimed at the independent IT professional. NTRsupport Ultimate is geared toward the needs of larger help desk operations and provides enterprise-grade scalability and more robust features demanded by large organizations. Reporting will soon be offered as an out-of-the-box capability for NTRsupport Ultimate. NTRglobal is one of the few vendors offering customers the option of either a SaaS-based or an on-premise remote support solution. Recently, it also began to offer a "virtual appliance," which is delivered to customers as a VMware image on a USB memory stick. This provides customers with infrastructure cost savings by enabling them to deploy an on-premise offering without the need for additional hardware.

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In addition to its clientless remote support offerings designed to assist support technicians in troubleshooting, the company has a complimentary offering NTRadmin, which provides automated, proactive monitoring and management of devices. It gives IT administrators the ability to determine if the antivirus software on client machines is up-to-date and, if not, to initiate the update or to power down machines at night to save energy, among other use cases. NTRglobal will soon be expanding its offerings with the launch of remote support for BlackBerry and Symbian devices.

Rsupport

Rsupport was established in 2001 in Korea and has focused on the Asia/Pacific market. Since its founding, the company has expanded and opened an office in Japan to be able to better support the Japanese market. The company currently has approximately 50 employees and had just over $5 million in revenue in 2007. Currently, Rsupport receives more than 80% of its revenue from the Asia/Pacific market. The Americas is the next-largest region, and EMEA is the smallest region.

Rsupport has two products, RemoteCall and RemoteView. RemoteCall is the clientless remote support tool and was the first product that Rsupport introduced in 2001. RemoteView is its remote access tool. This profile will focus on the features and capabilities of RemoteCall. Like all the tools highlighted in this study, RemoteCall is a full "clientless" remote support tool that allows full keyboard, video, and mouse control over a target device, without requiring that the device have any pre-installed software. Rsupport currently offers three different versions of the RemoteCall: a hosted version, a software version, and an appliance. The majority of Rsupport revenue for RemoteCall comes from technology vendors that are using the product to support their customers. IDC believes that this is a function of Rsupport's main market, specifically the Asia/Pacific market, where consumer support services are generally provided by the technology vendor at either no additional costs or a nominal fee.

E S S E N T I A L G U I D A N C E

A c t i o n s t o C o n s i d e r : A d v i c e f o r V e n d o r s

IDC believes that this market will begin to consolidate in the coming years. Right now the market is growing very quickly, and while that growth is projected to continue over the forecast period, not all vendors will be able to capitalize on this growth. In detail:

In current economic conditions, it is important to highlight the capabilities within the solution that enable a technician to multitask (features such as the ability to run multiple sessions, automate certain tasks, and process control for escalating problems with historical information transferred as well; in line with this, capabilities for managers to track the progress of technicians to better streamline processes and shift resources).

Consider the different needs of each of the market segments — external support for vendor products, service providers, and internal IT help desks. While a common set of needs exist across all of these segments, it is important to

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understand the nuanced difference and for marketing and sales effort to reflect this. For instance, external support will be more narrow gauge in terms of support issues and higher volume with highly specialized processes in place. Service providers support multiple customers and must be able to adapt to a variety of systems, applications, and end-user issues. Internal IT help desks will also have a diverse set of users and needs to address but will be more defined and have a high degree of customization needs.

Vendors that are addressing ways to support additional devices such as converged mobile devices (smartphones), medical devices, and so forth are well positioned to gain substantial longer-term revenue from these new markets.

In addition to making the product easy to use, vendors need to be aware of the role these products will play in a unified communications environment. Collaboration is an important part of the help desk.

L E A R N M O R E

R e l a t e d R e s e a r c h

Worldwide Remote Access Services Software 2008–2012 Forecast and 2007 Vendor Shares (IDC #215893, December 2008)

Worldwide Clientless Remote Support Software 2008–2012 Forecast (IDC #213625, August 2008)

S y n o p s i s

This IDC study presents a five-year forecast for the worldwide clientless remote support software market for 2009–2013. The worldwide market for clientless remote support tools will grow from $171 million in 2008 to $473 million in 2013, representing a five year CAGR of 22.6%. This market is being driven by the need for IT help desks and support professionals to become more efficient in their approach to supporting end users.

"These tools have the ability to dramatically improve end users' experience with support and thus their overall technology experiences," said Matt Healey, research manger for IDC Software and Hardware Support Services Program.

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C o p y r i g h t N o t i c e

This IDC research document was published as part of an IDC continuous intelligence service, providing written research, analyst interactions, telebriefings, and conferences. Visit www.idc.com to learn more about IDC subscription and consulting services. To view a list of IDC offices worldwide, visit www.idc.com/offices. Please contact the IDC Hotline at 800.343.4952, ext. 7988 (or +1.508.988.7988) or [email protected] for information on applying the price of this document toward the purchase of an IDC service or for information on additional copies or Web rights.

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