Businesses continuity usage will push the uptake of remote access services

An increasingly important aspect of any business continuity plan is providing employees, partners, and other constituencies with continued access to critical resources and data even if the usual office facilities are unavailable. Remote access services are one way to ensure this and, according to IDC, such services are starting to be recognized for their business continuity potential. As a result, IDC expects this market to experience a year-over-year growth rate of 34 percent through to 2010.

Remote access services software has the potential to grow across many horizontal and vertical markets, IDC believes. It can be used by both consumers and businesses, as anyone with a PC is a possible customer. Remote access services use screen-sharing technology that enables one PC to stream its desktop to a remote PC by an Internet connection. Once on the remote PC, the user can access all of the applications sitting on their desktop via a Web browser. These products are offered as a service, but vendors may allow the application to be hosted within a customer's data center as well.

To date, remote access services products have experienced the most success in the ‘prosumer’ market. Now, there is a strong push to market these services to corporations. As a result, vendors are offering more than one version of the software, often with expanded administration and control functionality for IT professionals. Interestingly, vendors have found that their prosumer customers are often the ones that provide the initial inroad for corporate adoption.

"In today's business environment, there are a number of use cases for remote access services, and business continuity is certainly a strong one," says Stacy Sudan, research analyst in IDC's Mobile Software research program. "By giving workers the ability to access their office desktop from a Web browser, remote access services software allows them to be productive from anywhere, no matter what the situation is."

•Date: 29th August 2006• Region: US/World •Type: Article •Topic: BC markets
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