"tech support" articles

Note: I am a paying Carbonite user (since April), upon the recommendation of my older brother, whose hard drive crashed, resulting in the loss of many digital photos. I had the opportunity to brief with David Friend, the chairman and CEO (and co-founder) of Carbonite , the online backup provider. The Carbonite folks reached out to me following my quote in an article in PCWorld regarding the recent shuttering of a number of once highly-touted online backup services: AOL ( Xdrive...

Retailers and broadband service providers to drive market for remote tech support to over 10 million U.S. households -- Annual U.S. revenues for remote technical support services will grow to $2.6 billion by 2013, according to a new report from Parks Associates. Digital Home Tech Support: Analysis and Forecasts finds that increased demand and technical innovations will allow retailers, broadband service providers, and third-party providers to grow their customer base and increase...

Parks Associates finds consumer use of tech support tripled since 2006, creating opportunities for service providers, retailers, and third-party providers -- The number of U.S. broadband households seeking professional services for computer and networking problems has tripled since 2006, as more users lack the time and expertise to deal with the complications of today’s technology, according to Customer Support in the Digital Home. This 2009 consumer survey from international...

When people ask me about which particular segments of the digital lifestyle market will continue to grow despite our current economic conditions, one area that I continually point out are the digital home tech support services. These can include the retail-based services (best known by Geek Squad), the remote PC support space, warranty services, home network management software, security services (Symantec, McAfee, Radialpoint, F-Secure, etc.), remote management and residential gateway...

I had my eye on new entrants and updates from existing players in the remote PC support space at CES last week. We hosted a panel at our CONNECTIONS Summit at CES last week titled Digital Home Customer Support: From Troubleshooting to Upselling? The panel included representatives from Affinegy , PlumChoice , Radialpoint, support.com , and Telcordia . Last year saw some significant changes in the digital home tech support space, with Cisco acquiring Pure Networks, Radialpoint...

I've been trying to keep up-to-date on developments in the home tech support space in 2008, and when I wrote awhile back that the remote support space in particular is very dynamic, I wasn't kidding! Not only are industry giants like Cisco, Dell, and Intel all making moves, but we're seeing consolidation. I had heard about possible goings-on with HiWired, but it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what was happening. A former HiWired employee has kept a blog , however, and noted the...

International research firm Parks Associates announced four free newsletters , distributed online to inform industry executives on developments in home networking, digital health, digital entertainment, consumer electronics, broadband services, wireless connectivity, and home systems. Parks Associates’ industry analysts, with over 20 years experience studying advanced technology markets, produce these newsletters on a monthly basis to provide analysis on industry topics and...

What LogMeIn and Intel announced back in September sounds incredibly helpful. I actually experienced a dreaded "blue screen of death" yesterday with my laptop. Fortunately, I was able to figure out that the anti-spyware/Windows Registry cleaner that I had installed the night before wasn't compatible with my Vista 64-bit laptop computer. I was able to pick a restore point on Windows prior to the anti-spyware software installation and get the system back up and running. However,...