Hi Elmat,
Maybe SBC has a clue:
Reality tarnishes WiFi's promise
By Francine Brevetti, BUSINESS WRITER, TriValley Herald
trivalleyherald.com
TODAY YOU CAN log onto the Internet from your wireless laptop at Starbucks or Kinko's stores, Borders book shops, a host of airport lounges, hotel rooms and other public venues -- besides your home and office. Even downtown Half Moon Bay is being outfitted with access points for wireless and industry sources say we'll see more urban areas so equipped.
But there's trouble in this scene. First off, while you're sipping your mocha macchiato, the stranger using his wireless laptop next to you has access to your files. He may not actually know he can winnow into your files. But access is possible.
And since you are using the same access point and behind the same firewall as he is, you have access to his as well. Ouch.
Then, what happens when you leave Starbucks to go to your office, leaving one network for another? When you reach the new destination, your laptop's network settings are lost and have to be reconfigured. Along with your security settings. You may have to switch from one network card to another.
With all the hullaballoo about wireless communications, or WiFi, there is a big crack in the sidewalk that no one is yet acknowledging, according to Marc B. Itzkowitz, who manages broadband product marketing at Redwood City's SupportSoft.
"Right now everyone says WiFi is going to be the savior of the Valley, it's going to pull the Nasdaq to 5,000," he said. "I don't believe that. The honeymoon is about to end."
In the next quarter or so, the weaknesses in the system will be abundantly clear, he predicted. And SupportSoft knows because as a company that diagnoses users' computer problems for tech support teams, it's starting to hear grumbles.
"We're starting to hear stories like: 'I lost my corporate data at Starbucks,'" the product manager reported.
"In all the literature that WiFi will save Silicon Valley, I haven't seen more subtle issues covered," said Itzkowitz. Issues such as whom to call when you need help.
Itzkowitz offered a scene from tech support hell: Say you are confused, having lost your settings. You call the tech support representative of your laptop's manufacturer.
"They say, 'It's not our problem. Call your broadband service provider,'" he
said. That company tells you to call your browser company or your Internet service provider. Who in turn tells you to contact your hardware vendor.
After all this, you may have to call your doctor.
So while this kind of high-tech finger pointing is well established in the world of desktop computers, it's only going to escalate with wireless devices, Itzkowitz predicted.
SupportSoft is in the curious position of having answers for these technical problems and the customers who could use them -- but its clients haven't deployed them yet.
The company made its name serving customer service teams of high-tech companies. Its software analyzes and diagnoses the problems with the user's computer, enabling the tech support rep to remedy their problems quickly.
SupportSoft even enables the user to figure the problem out and avoid the dreaded call all together.
In addition, for mobile devices, SupportSoft ensures that the user's network and security settings can all be reconfigured as he or she moves from office to home.
"Our technology allows you to protect security settings so that other people can't look into you files if they're behind the same firewall," Itzkowitz said. "Our software sets up barriers so people can't do that. It's all permission-based, you are alerted to the fact that you have moved, and asked 'Would you like to change those settings?'"
Currently, the company sells its solutions for wireless devices to laptop makers Sony and IBM -- so it's already installed in a new Sony or IBM laptop. It also serves a number of broadband service providers, including SBC and Comcast, because even at home on a desktop computer it is not uncommon for a computer to lose network settings on an existing network, he explained.
It's SupportSoft's service automation suite that empowers laptop manufacturers and service providers in this way. It charges Sony and IBM per laptop and its prices to broadband carriers are based on their numbers of subscribers.
Itzkowitz concedes that these corporate providers haven't yet deployed the particular capability that will keep your files inviolate while you are sitting in the lounge of the Hyatt. But SupportSoft is sitting in wait, ready to brand the capability as soon as it's called to action.
"Hotspots are now being used by early adopters. ... Those who aren't early adopters are going to start using them and that's when the calls are going to come in," said spokeswoman Jennifer Massaro.
She figures that will occur when the likes of IBM or Comcast find troubleshooting starts costing them money.
Chris Shipley, a technology industry product and marketing analyst for DEMO, a division of IDG, follows SupportSoft as an analyst and has had occasion to use its solutions as a customer of SBC.
"I was installing a wireless WiFi hotspot on my home computer," she recalled.
But the settings that SBC was using for the network between her modem and her computer were being overridden and she lost her Internet connection.
"If you're installing different network devices that change or override the settings, you're dead in the water until you get repaired," she said.
But the SBC and SupportSoft co-branded diagnostic service made it easy for her to troubleshoot and fix the problem.
petere |
