New Open Source Software Relieves Technical Support Center Scalability Pains

RAMAT GAN, Israel, November, 27, 2007 – With too many new software releases and gadgets on their hands, technical support centers around the world are having a hard time coping with the ever increasing complexity of current day computing environments. A new open Source software called SupportMatrix™,  which might be just be what the doctor ordered for those support center growth pains, was announced today by Codefidence ltd., an expert in Open Source commercialization.

Walk into the operations room of any big technical support center and you will find a large plaque on the wall with the listing of all supported hardware and software combinations.  An HP LaserJet 6000 printer on English Vista? Canon XH H1 camcorder attached to Windows 2000 SP3 Japanese? Each of these is a single combination out of hundreds which technical support center operators need to become knowledgeable about. Lately, however, there are just too many of them.

Solutions to difficult problems crop up in the darnedest of places, it seems. New software called SupportMatrix™ and released under an Open Source license by Israeli Open Source commercialization specialist Codefidence Ltd., may prove to be the answer to the technical support industry scalability pains: SupportMatrix™ uses virtualization to let technical support center staff interact with a simulation of the customer’s computer, right down to the operating system version, language and peripheral devices.

“SupportMatrix™ is innovative because there is no software that needs to be running on the customer machine and no connectivity is required. So an ISP, for example, can use it to  solve customer  connection problems, unlike traditional remote control software. ”, tells Gilad Ben-Yossef, Codefidence CEO and co-founder. “In fact, half of our current user base support customers via email. And since it is based on virtualization technology, teaching the system about new software is an easy as installing that new software on a regular PC.”

Released as Open Source software, the first version of SupportMatrix™ is available as a free download on the web site www.support-matrix.com, but Ben-Yossef does not expect many support center operators to download it and put it to use by themselves: “The IT industry have grown up: It’s not about the bits and bytes anymore, it’s about servicing customer needs. SupportMatrix™ is enterprise software.  Our customers need guarantees and SLAs, they want it to talk with their CRM systems and there must be someone to call if there are issues.  IT departments can download the bits and bytes from the web site for evaluation, maybe run a pilot, but for production use they will want to get a support contract with us. It’s the way the enterprise IT market works now. We’ve grown up. ”

SupportMatrix™ is already being used in support centers in Asia and is immediately available for purchase via resellers in  EMEA, with additional regions planned to be added during Q1 2008.

Codefidence Ltd. is a privately held company specializing in productizing of Open Source components. The company was founded in 2003 as a response to the growing need of OEMs which make use of Open Source components as part of their products and services for a independent and professional support organization.

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For more information, please check out our web site at http://www.support-matrix.com/