CIO Connect: What are the challenges that companies across the globe are facing due to increasing mobile workforce?

Shaw: Mobility has become more complex for enterprises, and particularly for multinationals that need to manage the mobility of their staff across many countries. According to IDC, the number of mobile workers accessing enterprise systems worldwide will top the one billion mark this year and touch 1.2 billion by 2013. There are simply more users with more devices using more applications. In addition there has been a blurring of the boundaries between business and personal usage and many IT managers struggle to enforce company policies while employees demand more consumer-like devices and applications. Their need for support in managing this complexity and cost has never been greater.

Some of the IT challenges faced due to enterprise mobility are:

Securing information systems
Integrating technologies
Supporting devices
Containing costs
Controlling personal use
Training users
Justifying investments
Limiting use

CIO Connect: What are some of the evolving trends and challenges in the remote access space?

Shaw: According to Frost & Sullivan the clientless remote support market is projected to hit global revenues of $588 million by 2014. Several trends are driving this growth:  the economy is forcing businesses to do more with less; there is a shortage of skilled IT workers at branch locations and telecommuters, remote workers and mobile workers are increasing as a percentage of the workforce.  Security is the biggest challenge when it comes to remote access. However, in a world that depends on an increasingly mobile workforce as well as online communications for conducting business, eliminating remote access in the interests of security is counterproductive to say the least.

LogMeIn is very aware of the growing needs of the large enterprises and thus it provides solutions that help remotely support and manage hundreds or thousands of desktops, laptops, servers, kiosks, POS machines and the applications that run on them. LogMeIn also provides cross-platform capabilities which include support for Windows PCs, Macintosh computers and smartphones, including BlackBerry, iOS, Android, Symbian, and Windows Mobile devices.

Increasing mobility also increases the possibility of data loss? What steps should be taken to curtail this?

Shaw: Devices like tablets and smartphones are becoming access devices and enterprises are still figuring out how to best ensure data is neither lost nor accessed by unauthorized people.  Enforcing password policies and employing capabilities that allow IT helpdesk to remotely lock a lost or stolen device are musts.  Furthermore, keeping data behind a firewall on the network (where it can be backed up regularly) helps ensure its integrity.  Software like LogMeIn’s remote access solution, Ignition, enables users maintain the high level of mobility that they have become accustom to and get access to the data on the corporate network via their tablet or smartphone, without actually downloading or storing that data on the device itself.  

Please discuss the business benefits of deploying remote support tools.

There are many advantages that companies can gain from remote support tools are. Some of them are:

Anytime, anywhere support: Remote support tools offer IT teams the flexibility to support a vast range of devices, wherever the user may be, as long as they’re connected to the Internet.  Some scenarios where remote support may come into play include setup and configuration of services such as email or calendars, assisting users with FAQs of their device or its programs, diagnosing and resolving errors and issues, and much more.

High-quality support experience: Remote support capabilities enable technicians to connect, diagnose, and solve user’s issues quickly and effectively, and can help shorten average handle times.  What’s more, the overall perception of technicians’ proficiency is perceived by users to be higher during calls that involve a remote support session compared with those without.

Improved first call resolution: By providing multi-session handling, instant chat, diagnostic tools, technician collaboration and more, remote support tools help reduce escalations to level two supports and solve more issues on the first call.

CIO Connect: Inability to provide mobility and flexibility can potentially result in costing the business millions in lost productivity and missed sales. However, this can also leave an organization vulnerable to security threats. In such a scenario, how can CIOs secure their company while heeding to new-age trends like mobility?

Shaw: At LogMeIn, we take the security and protection of our customer’s data very seriously. Our products are architected with security being the most important design objective. In fact the security standards and encryption techniques used in our products are the same as those used for online banking. As part of this commitment, our datacenters and source code are continually reviewed by independent, accredited third party audit firms to ensure that the information remains confidential.

We detail our security standards under the following tabs:

SSL/TLS communications: This is the communications protocol used by LogMeIn.  It is the standard protocol used for Web-based commerce or online banking. It provides authentication and protection against eavesdropping, tampering and message forgery.

Authentication: LogMeIn hosts maintain a persistent connection with a LogMeIn server. When a user logs on to LogMeIn.com, the user's browser verifies the identity of the server behind the scenes, using the server's certificate, just like the hosts do. The user in turn authenticates to LogMeIn.com with an email address and password combination, where the password is verified. Users also need to authenticate to every LogMeIn host they access remotely.

Intrusion resistance: Authenticating with LogMeIn.com or (in case of a browser left unattended in the wrong place at the wrong time) authenticating with the host can be subject to brute force login attempts by unauthorized users. Both LogMeIn.com and the host employ simple but efficient lockout mechanisms that only allow a few incorrect logins before locking the account or the offending IP address.
Auditing and logging: LogMeIn.com has granular auditing capabilities available under a user's account security settings. These audit messages will notify users via email when an important change (such as adding a new computer) or a suspicious event (such as an incorrect login) occurs. Furthermore, LogMeIn.com provides extensive reporting capabilities on past remote access sessions.

CIO Connect: Which markets have seen the most adoption of remote access tools?

Shaw: Remote access is really a horizontal solution, with businesses from consulting and professional services, IT services and real estate, to retail, distribution, finance and healthcare all having needs to enable their employees with remote access.  

CIO Connect: What are your plans for India?

Shaw: India is a very important market for us.  In the last six months we have grown our customer base to include some of the larger Managed Service Providers (MSPs). Accenture, iYogi, Quatrro are few bigger customers for us in India out of more than 20 enterprises who are using our solutions.

We want to build up on this initial momentum and are ramping in India by adding more sales and support staff. The key markets/ verticals that we plan to target in India are MSPs, outsourced IT services organizations and mobile service providers. Any organization providing technical support to internal and external customer can benefit from our solutions.