With over 100 Support Desk vendors in the market, costs ranging from free to over $5,000 per advanced user (i.e. Technical Support Rep or Customer Support Rep) and a vast array of architectures, web services, and features to evaluate, choosing the right helpdesk software for your organization can be a time consuming and aggravating process.

The purpose of this article is to try and simplify the process for you. This article will deal with general issues that everyone in the help desk software market should understand prior to making the final choice. Understanding these issues will help you make a more educated conclusion.

Issue Tracking Software - Architecture

The issue that tends to generate the most uncertainty in our industry is client/server web-enabled solutions (C/S) vs. 100% web-based solutions. In general, C/S architected solutions are dying breed. At one point, an awesome improvement over main frame solutions, C/S technology has been phased out due to the accesability and benefits of web-based solution structures. The main reason some helpdesk software businesses continue to sell C/S solutions is due to the fact that they do not have the development assets to convert their older product to a web-based architecture. Some of the advantages that web-based solutions have over C/S solutions include:

• No client-side software installation, updates, or support

• Log in from anywhere, anytime with any web browser

• Access to all features and functions at anytime and from any place

When you begin to demo different customer support software solutions please take note if you are required to load code on your desktop to starts the demo. If so, you are not doing business with a vendor that offers a web-based solution. True web-based structures need only a web address in order to see a demo.

So, if the vendor sends you a 5 MB exe. file to try their solution, you are not seeing a 100% web based customer support software solution. The file that vendor is emailing you is either front ending a C/S system or is a entire canned demo on your desktop. Make sure you evaluate the solution you are going to buy! If you do buya C/S solution, please note that web-enabled add-on modules will not give you full access to all of the features when you are in a browser on the web.

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