Citrix announced that its market-leading remote support product, Citrix GoToAssist, now offers an expanded feature set to address the growing IT demand to support mobile devices. As recent research has indicated, mobile workstyles and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) company initiatives are becoming accepted business practices, putting increased pressure on IT staff to deliver fast and efficient mobile device support both on and off company networks.

The new GoToAssist capabilities enable IT professionals to deliver responsive remote support of iOS devices. In addition, remote support sessions can be initiated directly from the mobile devices themselves, using new GoToAssist apps for Android and iOS. Both applications offer free unlimited remote support for attended sessions.

As the remote support technology of choice for more than 50+ million support sessions in 2011, the GoToAssist product was recently recognised as a Community Choice Honoree in the 2012 Small Business Influencer Awards in the Apps Category.

GoToAssist achieved this designation by receiving top votes from its customer community and remote support users. This nomination reaffirms that GoToAssist is continuing to deliver IT support solutions that customers need and demand.

“From smartphones to tablets and laptops, mobile devices have simply become a pervasive business necessity. These are tools that organisations and their employees just can’t live without, which places increased pressure on IT professionals to provide quick and effective support to a growing number of devices,” said Elizabeth Cholawsky, vice president and general manager, IT
Support Line of Business, Citrix. “At Citrix, we’re focused on IT support solutions that deliver instant effective support, maximise client satisfaction and drive real business results for new ways of working.”

New Feature Highlights:

  • Remote Support of iOS Devices: IT professionals now have the ability to provide support for iPad and iPhone users and their mobile devices via optimised chat, as well as the ability to conduct secure chat sessions, update profiles and configure device settings remotely. Profiles created with the iPhone Configuration Utility can also be shared to troubleshoot problems and set business policies.
  • GoToAssist for Android – free remote support app: IT professionals can deliver live support anytime, anywhere directly from their Android mobile device, instantly connecting to their clients’ computers at no cost. In addition, GoToAssist paid subscribers receive the added benefits of access to unattended machines, diagnostic viewing and other support tools.
  • Updated GoToAssist App for iPad: In the new version, paid subscribers can now view diagnostic information about the computer supported, email the .TXT file of all the diagnostic reports, and transfer support sessions started from the GoToAssist Expert desktop application to the GoToAssist app for iPad (and vice versa).
  • Session Recording: This new optional recording feature captures active support and chat sessions for auditing and training, enabling better monitoring of technician effectiveness and customer support. Recordings are stored for 90 days in standard downloadable MPEG-4 format.
  • Language support: International versions of GoToAssist Remote Support and Monitoring are now available in French and German.

GoToAssist Remote Support offers users the ability to provide support to PCs, Macs and iOS devices and from PCs, Macs, Android and iPad devices.

Quotes:

“IDC expects to see growing demand for cloud-based, remote support tools, primarily driven by the continuing increase in mobile device adoption and the complex software required to enable that adoption across all devices. Support providers must focus on delivering efficient, effective live support to resolve problems quickly and enable a superior customer experience.

Support delivery tools like GoToAssist from Citrix that are easy to use, highly scalable, and available from and to a range of mobile devices can help IT professionals looking to provide a high level of support in an increasingly mobile world.” Elaina Stergiades, Research Manager, Software Support Services, IDC
“With GoToAssist, we are able to provide effective remote support across the company with minimum disruption to end-users.

Unlike other solutions, where the user has to be there and watch us do our work, GoToAssist allows us to undertake remote diagnostic and repair work without the need to involve the user. The additional mobile support features enables us to support the growing number of smartphones and tablets in our business. It’s this flexibility and focus on delivering fast, effective support that means GoToAssist remains embedded within our business.” Peter Maljaars, Global IT Services and Infrastructure Manager, O’Neill (Warmond, The Netherlands).