From the new year, IBM is to offer its largest outsourcing
customers in the UK Virtual Helpdesk, a system that uses agent
technology to accelerate technical support.
Launched eight months ago in the US, the service is among the first
steps of IBM's strategy to deliver self-healing hardware.
John Richards, e-support development executive for IBM Global
Services, told CW360.com that the agent technology would be
provided through Resolution Suite, a software product from
e-support specialist Support.Com.
Residing on users' PCs, the agent collects information to allow
helpdesk staff to resolve technical issues. "Common problems - like
a user having the wrong printer driver - can be fixed
automatically," Richards explained.
User calls to helpdesks reporting e-mail failure was another common
problem rectifiable by the system, said Richards. "Most of the
time, [failure] to send e-mail is a connectivity problem because
the mail server has crashed."
Using the Support.Com tool and Microsoft VBScript on an end-user's
machine, Richards said it was possible for the agent software to
check whether the mail server was running and whether the user had
access to it.
IBM's drive to develop true self-healing systems would see a
dramatic expansion in the number of VBScripts running on end-user's
PCs, explained Richards. "At the moment we have a library of 50
[scripts], but we hope to have 1,000 by next year," he told
CW360.com.
Richards said the new helpdesk outsourcing service would run from
IBM's Manchester call center, and would include a portal for
self-service help.
IBM is spending 25% of its research and development budget on the
eLiza project, to design systems that are self-fixing.
The ultimate goal of the project is for PC hardware to configure
itself by installing new operating system software and data
automatically. Another aim is to deliver servers that can balance
their own workloads and cope with surges in usage.