Official TeamViewer pricing as of February, 2018. I’ve followed their process, submitted multiple forms over a number of months, and then finally Team Viewer asked me to sign a Declaration of personal use, I completed that form and got an email indicating that my TeamViewer ID has been reset. I only use the app for personal use, my ID was flagged as using for commercial use, which I’m not.
![]() ![]() The cloud has its place, to be sure but in my opinion the race to the cloud is getting completely out of hand. I am not a fan of the way so many services are moving to the cloud. Basically, I had the following wish list: I had some criteria in mind, however, which helped to narrow the selection pool considerably. What can replace TeamViewer?There seem to be dozens of remote support software options, and choosing one was difficult. Last but not least, the software had to be affordable for a one-man shop.Does anyone meet all four (five) criteria?After spending hours searching, reading, pricing, eliminating options that were not self-hosted or that priced themselves clear out of reach, I finally settled on ISL Light. (As far as I know, they are unique in this respect some other brands, including other flavors of Android and iOS, allow view-only access.) Sometimes it’s awfully handy to help a struggling mobile user by simply running his phone for him for a bit. Samsung actually allows remote support software to control their Android devices. Occasionally I need to remotely control Android phones. And in the service business, time is money. Many people I support remotely are not that computer-savvy, and having to lead them through a complicated connection process is frustrating — not to mention, time-wasting. It supports mobile devices, is easy to use, and self-hosted pricing is reasonable. It can be self-hosted, and is cross-platform. It’s handy to have a couple tricks up your sleeve when a client has trouble connecting.) Anyhow, as someone who self-hosts as many of his own services as possible I was happy to discover that ISL checked off most items of my wishlist. (I’ve been thinking of re-visiting Simple Help, not as a replacement for ISL but as a fallback option. I demoed Simple Help just a little and though it meets the self-hosted criteria, and certainly was priced right, I wasn’t sure if the connection process was quite as smooth and intuitive as it could be and wondered if my typical client would find it difficult to connect. Make So Team Viewer Can Not Tell I'M Using For Commercial Use Code For TheClicking “Start New Session” opens a new window with a unique session code for the client.There’s “always on” client software that can be installed and allows you to connect to a computer any time, unattended. Personal taste here, but for this type of thing I’m in favor of non-web software that runs on my computer.The ISL Light support software running on Mac. Some other options, like ConnectWise (formerly ScreenConnect) are entirely web-based to initiate a support session, you must do so through the web interface, download the small client file and run it, etc. On that point, ’nuff said!There’s software installed on my computer, reminiscent of TeamViewer. I can support clients running Windows, Mac, or Linux and I can do so from any computer I happen to be working on whether it’s Windows, Mac, or Linux.It can work with just one firewall port (TCP 7615) forwarded. You can also switch sides with your partner and show him your screen instead.Like TeamViewer, ISL is cross platform. Always On clients can be sorted into groups for better organization.Like TeamViewer, while connected to a client computer you have the option of instant messaging with the client, or initiating a voice or video call. I don’t use this often but it is a nice touch that comes in handy once in a while.There’s an instant messaging / website chat feature included. Even the executable files that are downloaded to client machines can be renamed.ISL Light controls mobile devices that support remote control. With some effort, you can replace the default logos and branding with your own company logo. This can help free up incoming 80 and 443 for internal web servers.It’s re-brandable. Skype for mac trying to load symantec codeMy emails to him and Alex have received timely responses.Finally, it’s relatively affordable. Charles, my rep at ISL, is just a phone call away. An older server version is always supposed to be able to control a newer client without problems so you’re not locked into a system of forced upgrades.The team at ISL has been eager to please and I’ve not had a hard time getting their dev team’s attention when I’ve discovered bugs. Instead of signing up for a subscription-based website chat service, host your own! No extra fees for this.Updates are released fairly frequently, and updating to the latest version is painless through the web-based admin panel.ISL promises that they will never break compatibility through updates as TeamViewer does. Apparently the annual fee is $139 no matter how many concurrent licenses you have — a great savings for small businesses who are expanding and need to watch their budget.While we’re on the subject of cost, contrast that with TeamViewer’s new pricing. I do feel like it—I like software updates, I want to support what they’re doing, and I think good remote support software is worth that much to my business. I forget what additional channel licenses cost, but the annual fee for self-hosted servers is just $139.00 and I only need to pay that if I feel like it. Additional channels are needed if two or more support agents will be hosting sessions at the same time. This includes just one technician channel, just like TeamViewer Premium, although (also like TeamViewer) that one technician can control unlimited client computers simultaneously. This got me a perpetual license to run ISL Conference Proxy on my own server, with a year of software updates and support. The default picture quality isn’t quite as good, (see below), and there also seems to be just a little more latency — especially if the client machine has so-so network connectivity. Adjusting the $139.00 USD for Canadian funds at an exchange rate of 1.30, I can pay ISL roughly $180 per year that’s over $800 of savings to take to the bank.To be fair, not everything about ISL is quite up to par with the TeamViewer experience. And that’s for just one concurrent technician license. I’m not sure how long that special pricing is good or if it’s there to stay presuming it’s not, at the regular price of $99.90 monthly, that amounts to $1,198.00 annually.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorLeslie ArchivesCategories |