Motive Self-Service Software "Talks" To Desktops

Motive Communications Inc. will unveil a new version of its Motive Duet customer-service software on Monday that adds an Internet self-service software module so that users can handle their own technical-support tasks.

The new self-service engine connects to Motive's ActiveSense, technology that connects directly to a computer's system and software. When the user logs into the Duet self-service system, the Motive software automatically checks the user's computer for typical issues associated with the software in question. If the self-diagnosis fails to turn up the problem, ActiveSense passes the user to a technical-support person. But instead of the user's having to tell tech support what's wrong, ActiveSense sends all of the information about the computer and its performance directly to the representative. The user doesn't have to waste time repeating symptoms, and the support representative doesn't have to rely on the user's subjective perceptions of the situation.

Duet relies on ActiveContent documents--essentially, documents with objects embedded in them--to interact with desktops. If the technical-support rep finds the problem, he or she can generate an ActiveContent document that will remedy the problem on the computer.

Duet includes a basic version of ActiveLink, a service that features simple ActiveContent documents, for no extra fee. Duet costs $75,000. An ActiveLink Premium subscription, which feeds ActiveContent pages for common applications to organizations, costs $50,000 per year.