Growth for Remote Access Services Software as Businesses Develop Continuity Plans

IDC: With tensions broiling in the Middle East, renewed threats for commercial aviation, and hurricane season upon us, businesses are assessing their risks and disaster recovery plans to meet potential security threats and natural disasters. A critical part of any disaster recovery plan is ensuring business continuity by providing employees, partners, and other constituencies with access to critical resources and data while they are away from the office. Remote access services software is one way to ensure this. Remote access services are just now being recognized for their business continuity potential and this market is expected to experience a year-over-year growth rate of 34% through 2010.

Remote access services software has the potential to grow across many horizontal and vertical markets. It can be used by both consumers and businesses, as anyone with a PC is a possible customer. Remote access services use screen-sharing technology that enables one PC to stream its desktop to a remote PC by an Internet connection. Once on the remote PC, the user can access all of the applications sitting on their desktop via a Web browser. These products are offered as a service, but vendors may allow the application to be hosted within a customer's datacenter as well.

To date, remote access services products have experienced the most success in the prosumer market. Now, there is a strong push to market these services to corporations. As a result, vendors are offering more than one version of the software, often with expanded administration and control functionality for IT professionals. Interestingly, vendors have found that their prosumer customers are often the ones that provide the initial inroad for corporate adoption.

In today's business environment, there are a number of use cases for remote access services, and business continuity is certainly a strong one. By giving workers the ability to access their office desktop from a Web browser, remote access services software allows them to be productive from anywhere, no matter what the situation is.

worldwide Remote Access Services 2006-2010 Forecast and 2005 Vendor Shares Publ 20060824