The Redundant Help-Desk Techie thanks to AT&T Tech Support 360 and Intel VPro
September 24, 2009 by Jimson Lee · Leave a Comment
Everyone is trying to cut costs.
Unfortunately, instead of cutting a high salaried executive, most firms cut back staff by laying off the lower end of the food chain.
And that includes Help Desk Technicians, which means welcome your new outsourced Help Desk Technician where he or she will access your system remotely.
Current remote support revolves around desktop sharing technology like Remote Desktop/Assistance, PCAnywhere, VNC, or java based one-click applets like WebEx.
Today, an external phone call is also required to speak to the technician, but with Unified Messaging, you can make that phone call via VoIP right from the browser. That is another topic for discussion. (Who wants to chat via typing?)
But what happens if you have a hardware malfunction, such as a bad hard drive, or a BIOS problem?
How about a virus or spyware? Bad video or network drivers? Resetting a user’s system password?
The Intel VPro and AT&T Tech Support 360 announcement last week isn’t making this any easier for the soon to be unemployed Help Desk Technician. They are teaming up to provide remote help-desk support targeted to small and midsized businesses. The only requirement is your broadband network is up and running.
Intel VPro and AT&T Tech Support 360
Intel’s vPro is their hardware-assisted remote management and security technology.
On the flip side, AT&T’s existing Tech Support 360 subscription offers with more than 100,000 small US businesses subscribers since Fall 2008.
The secret is Intel’s Remote PC Assist Technology (RPAT), a feature of vPro.
Security? Can they see me naked through my webcam?
In order to initiate the service call, a keyboard combination must be enabled in your motherboard’s BIOS. Intel recommends CTL+ALT+F1 for the “Fast Call For Help" key combination.
Thus even if your PC appears “dead” whether it’s a bad video driver, bad network settings or bad hard disk, the Tech Support 360 Technician can still “see” your computer or laptop.
The Tech will be able to access and repair the computer via the internet, but won’t be able to change a hard drive. That’s another service call to your hardware vendor.
The bottom line is if the service is cheap enough, and lower then the cost of a full time employee, you’ll be seeing another Help Desk Technician on the street due to outsourcing.
Maybe that Help Desk Technician should work for AT&T?
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About Jimson Lee
Jimson is a freelance industry analyst, with over 25 years experience in the IT industry. Prior to joining CRMHelpDeskSoftware, he spent 4 years as a Senior Consultant at Sierra Systems Group, part of Golden Gate Capital, a leading private equity firm with $9 billion in capital under management. Jimson currently resides in Rome, Italy.
