[1125] in IS Home Pages
Core Software: Timbuktu Site License?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kevin M. Cunningham)
Tue Mar 28 18:15:22 2000
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Message-Id: <v04020a00b506e83ab24d@[18.152.1.50]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 18:15:12 -0500
To: goguen@mit.edu, swrt@mit.edu, mitapps@mit.edu, vsls@mit.edu,
ishome@mit.edu
From: "Kevin M. Cunningham" <kcunning@MIT.EDU>
Cc: "Kevin M. Cunningham" <kcunning@mit.edu>, hogue@mit.edu
Howdy,
As I was researching how other universities distribute software, I noticed that USC has a site license for Timbuktu, which is software that allows you to remotely manage another computer, including seeing what's on the screen. They include this software in their basic distribution set (along with Netscape, Fetch, etc.), and they list it as a "Remote Consulting" product, implying it's used to help consultants work with customers remotely.
Have we looked into getting a Timbuktu site license to help our consulting groups assist clients remotely?
Of course, it may be too expensive, inappropriate, etc. -- there's no indication whether USC has found it worth its investment (we'd want to check with the -- and with Netopia about costs...). And I know it wouldn't help with basic connectivity issues or remote computing (e.g., laptops, dialup, etc.), which are a significant part of the Help call load. But it might be worth looking into.
Just a thought as we once again look into how to help the support providers help customers.
--Kevin
