Lantronix unveils Application Services Platform
By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 2/29/2008 7:42:00 PM
Lantronix says its ManageLinx platform for application services delivers secure, easy-to-deploy remote Internet access to virtually any piece of networked equipment behind firewalls, from a central location. ManageLinx is well suited for OEMs or managed service providers (MSP) to generate, expand, or accelerate remote product service (RPS) or smart service business offerings.
For chief service officers and those responsible for product support programs, the ability to access installed equipment residing behind customer firewalls has been a difficult challenge, and often becoming an obstacle to realizing the benefits and additional revenue opportunities offered by remote product services.
According to Boston-based Aberdeen Group, the average expense of rolling a truck to service customer equipment is $209 per incident. If an RPS solution is deployed, OEMs with a staff of 50 technicians, making three onsite service calls daily, can reduce the number of calls by at least 30 percent, saving $2.3 million or more annually.
RPS also can increase equipment uptime by 13.5 percent, decrease mean time to repair by 14.1 percent, and boost service revenues and profitability by 17.6 percent.
“The market potential for remote product services has been estimated to grow to more than $290 billion by 2011," says said Micky Long, research director of the Strategic Service Management Practice at Aberdeen Group. "While there is significant interest from companies—especially at the enterprise level—in launching an RPS model—or expanding their current service offering to increase efficiency and profitability—there are challenges that that hinder widespread adoption. These include integration with existing systems, difficulty of deployment, and security issues. ManageLinx addresses each one of these issues and also provides service organizations with a comprehensive and easy-to-deploy solution. Solutions like ManageLinx have the potential to accelerate the remote product service market.”
ManageLinx utilizes the Internet to create a Virtual Device Network (VDN) that allows access to only authorized equipment, without visibility to any other part of the network or compromising IT policies or firewall integrity. The initial ManageLinx offering consists of the Device Services Manager (DSM) and the Device Services Controller (DSC). Acting as a publicly accessible VDN router, the DSM manages DSC units on the LAN at each location. The DSM serves as a proxy connection point for participating DSCs and relays connections between user hosts and destination devices. It also offers a complete Web 2.0-based management system for all configuration and control.
