There have always been a few serious players in the desktop
sharing arena. Ranging in price and
features, these different companies have dominated the online seminar (before
we called them "webinars") and the remote desktop support/access
space as soon as the ability to have virtual meetings was available. However, new players have joined the space
and crept in slowly to take that market share.
For their protection we'll keep them nameless for now as I don't mean to
knock any existing product, only promote the newest to the group of GoTo's and
Ex's.
I say new to the group but that's probably a
misconception. LogMeIn has been around
for about 4-5 years now, playing a huge role in IT support. For years we have had LogMeIn Free and Pro
versions where individuals across the land have been able to access servers and
desktops from anywhere (including Smartphones) for free. That might be worth repeating -- free I say,
free. Knowing this company for years
now, supporting them and being a frequent if not daily user, I've often
wondered how they're making money. Not
for me to ask though as I never look a gift horse in the mouth.
I guess the real reason that I say they've finally hit the
big time with beating the competition is their newest addition (been around for
a little under a year now) in Join.Me. I
had thought that LogMeIn and LogMeIn Rescue was enough, but they decided to
even go down the road of the webinar.
Taking advantage of the fun domain registries in Montenegro, they've got
an amazing product which is amazingly easy to use and again, free. Hardest part is getting to the website, but
they have made that easier redirecting www.joinme.com to the Join.Me URL. A simple screen prompting to Join or Share is
all you need. One person shares, one or
more will join to watch, and there's even the ability to take control or pass
control which makes remote desktop support even easier. I personally use this little web application
several times a week for either an online demo or to support my clients. Are there some limitations? Sure there are -- you can't copy and paste,
certain key strokes aren't captured, and file transfer isn't there. However, for free, can't we get over those
little things? If not, don't worry
there's a pay version where file transfer and other features are enabled at a
pretty reasonable cost.
To be fair to the company, I'll also mention LogMeIn Rescue
which is most likely their true cash flow product. A little pricey for the occasional support
guy, this one is priceless for any tech support organization. I'll let them do their own marketing piece
here, but if you need a remote support tool (for a call center), do NOT skip
this one in your analysis of products that are out there. There are a slew of other products as well
such as LogMeIn Central, Hamachi and LogMeIn Backup as well which are worth
checking out.
Usually I write towards trends in the IT world and I want to
be clear that's what I'm doing here.
While this is promoting a particular product line (and no, I don't get
anything from this), I guess my true point here is beware to the dominant
players from yesterday and bravo to the new and inventive players of today and
tomorrow. If anything LogMeIn is keeping
the other guys on their toes and making them look towards innovation to keep
clients. Isn't that what better business
is about? A month from now we might be
talking about another player in this space, but for now, we've at least got
another biggie continuing to challenge all, even themselves.
