Pulseway

[Mike McCall]

Since deciding to go ahead and start my own company (Shamrock Computer Services - SCS), I've been looking at various remote software options. ScreenConnect, BeAnywhere, and Pulseway are in the forefront right now. Pulseway offers some things that I like such as using my iPad to monitor the health of a client's machine. Using their app I can "see" a good amount of information about a machine, but my interaction is limited. I can check for Windows updates, select which ones to install, and reboot the machine if I have to. I can delete programs if I need to, but beyond that I can do little. However, from the desktop dashboard I can access the Pulseway settings on the client machine and enable the ability for unattended remote access. That feature is in beta, so it isn't perfect. Lag time can be several seconds and image/color rendering is lacking. Nevertheless, it seems to work reasonably well. The pricing also appeals to me at $16yr./instance. Easily recoverable in service fees.

Here's the rub for me, I have the ability to access someone's computer at any time without any notice that I've been there. Other companies charge for unattended access. Is this a situation where the company charges a license fee for that feature, or is that fee coming from Big Brother? Since this feature is in beta, is it likely that Pulseway will license that capability eventually? How do you handle unattended access? I could split-out the limited access monitoring for a nominal monthly fee, and offer the unattended access/greater support for a higher fee. How do you handle these things?

Mike

 

[Mainstay]

With the rapage that is LMI, we've instituted the following:

Systems that are definitely mission critical and require monthly / daily monitoring: $55 / system / year.

Systems that are ad-hoc remote support: $5 / session (without getting crazy).

This covers our costs and makes a small bit of extra.

Systems that have say 30 systems, but 10 are what we really monitor, we will only charge the 10.

With LMI doing their crazy dance, I would build in the costing from the get-go.

Most of our customers have been just fine with the pricing, but some have been SHOCKED and APPALLED. =)

 

[AxlDickinson]

Mike and what's your feedback on ScreenConnect and BeAnywhere?

 

[Mike McCall]

I've narrowed my search to Pulseway, BeAnywhere, and ScreenConnect. There are things to like about all of them. My opinion is based on having a single tech supporting clients remotely.

Pulseway offered a simple app that allowed me to monitor and minimally control devices from my iPad, as do several others. To actually remotely connect to a machine required that I be on my desktop. Most things worked well and the pricing isn't unreasonable, just recurring. The remote desktop connection is still in beta and a bit buggy as a result. Latency was an issue and at times was several seconds between an action on my part and my actually seeing the result. Once they get the bugs worked out it looks to be a good product worthy of serious consideration.

BeAnywhere I liked in terms of functional useability. There were 2 things that put me off. One was the resolution of the remote desktop. It just didn't compare to any of the others I tried. Even the beta remote desktop from Pulseway had good resolution, so I don't know why BeAnywhere's was poor. I found it difficult to read menus and messages that came up. No idea why that was, or what makes their software different in that regard, but they were the only one I had the issue with. The other thing that put me off is their pricing. I like the fact that they offer a free tier for those who may be starting out, and wish more companies offered something like it. Unfortunately BeAnywhere appears to be downright stingy with their unattended access. It may be that many tech's don't use unattended access very much, but I honestly don't know if I will be or not. I can see the utility for doing remote maintenance (for example) after business hours, or any number of other times for that matter. The ability to offer that to a client under contract could be valuable. If such support became a significant part of my business I would soon be forced to change to another software package, so why not just do that in the beginning and avoid having to make the change when my clients are already used to particular software? At $79mo. for a mere 5 unattended access licenses BeAnywhere costs $948yr., every year.

ScreenConnect doesn't offer a free version, or any other version other than the whole thing. There's no differing levels of functionality or licensing. You get 30-days to kick the tires however you choose. Latency seemed minimal and the resolution was good. The additional tools, and the logical way to find/use them made the product easy for me to use effectively. It's one price to use the product after the trial period. If ScreenConnect required one to renew a subscription every year at $325, it would still be about 1/3 the cost of BeAnywhere without the license restrictions. That difference isn't subtle. As your business grows, you buy more licenses. The more licenses you buy, the more your cost per license comes down. Say you have 4 techs including yourself. Your total cost for a license for each tech is $1,200. BeAnywhere costs $50mo. for the first tech, and $33mo. for each tech after that. That's $149mo. for the 4 techs in the shop. That's $1,788yr., every year.

I am intentionally refraining from quibbling over color schemes, layout, and such. Those things I consider to be personal preference. I may like some things about an offering that you may dislike. Taken on just the most basic of functions like latency, stability, resolution, and pricing, my vote goes to ScreenConnect. It does everything I need it to with no fiddling. It just works. It's pricing is affordable and sensible, and doesn't require me to generate high remote support volume to make the cost back. I like that.