InformationWeek

April 24, 2000

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Support Services Help Users Help Themselves

Previo update lets users restore crashed systems; Motive strengthens ties to systems vendors

By George V. Hulme

TechEncyclopedia

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here's hope for the overburdened help desk. Backup and disaster-recovery company Stac Software Inc., which relaunches next week as Previo Inc., is updating its eSupport Essentials Web product to let end users restore crashed and corrupted systems with the click of an icon. Motive Communications Inc. is also making its online customer-support capabilities available directly to desktop users through partnerships with systems vendors, with the goal of speeding problem resolution.

Previo says eSupport Essentials, which saves data off-site, is the first online support offering that can guarantee 100% automated recovery of an individual's data and user preferences, as well as the operating system and applications. "We are focused on bringing the end user's system back to functioning condition as quickly as possible," CEO John Ticer says.

Florida Power & Light Co. plans to adopt the product, says Bill Sedgwick, technology consultant for the utilities company. Its IT department has been using Stac's Replica Network Data Manager to help manage disaster recovery for 400 notebooks and 750 desktops, but Sedgwick looks forward to giving end users tools to handle certain tasks on their own. For example, if a system begins to founder after a new application is installed, eSupport Essentials lets the user easily restore the system to its earlier configuration by clicking on an icon or using a CD-ROM for full restoration."We welcome anything that reduces calls into the call center," Sedgwick says.

Previo hasn't disclosed a licensing fee for the software, which it will sell to companies and make available to service providers to offer as a subscription service. ESupport Essentials will be available by the end of next month.

Meanwhile, Compaq, Dell Computer, and Hewlett-Packard last week expanded their relationships with Motive. The vendors will include the company's new MotiveNet Server on their business desktop PCs; the latest version provides end users with a knowledge base of solutions to common problems that they can access through a Web interface. Pricing for MotiveNet Server support services, to be rolled out in the third quarter, has not been disclosed.

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