Cisco Webex Support (discontinued) vs. SecureLink Enterprise Access

We use WebEx Support Center in the IT department to support users as well as work with vendors remotely. This applies to physical desktops, laptops, and Virtual Desktops. We have around 200 employees. Most employees work in one of our offices, but we do have at least 5-10 users who are more frequently remote than they are in the office. It helps us remotely access machines we wouldn't otherwise have access to, due to lack of physical access. It's excellent for troubleshooting access problems from users' personal machines, as well.

Incentivized

It does exactly what it needs to. The only times I've had serious issues with rolling out to a vendor is when they have a "contractual agreement" to only use their solution. Almost every vendor that I've worked with and shown this product to has been skeptical for the first 5 minutes and fully converted to liking the ease of use of the product by 10 minutes

• Simple Remote Access - WebEx Support Center works with either a permanent install or temporary executable, so you don't have to worry about users being particularly comfortable or knowledgeable about software installation. It also doesn't matter if the user is on an account without admin rights, you can still connect and see what's going on using the temporary executable.
• Robust Access Options - You can take see the user's screen, take control of their screen, send files, and retrieve files. It's a great tool for troubleshooting issues that users might be experiencing and doesn't depend on them being able to find the files that you need to properly troubleshoot their issues.
• Great performance - Even when users don't have a particularly great internet connection, you can still typically get good results and help them quickly. You're not going to do it over dial-up (if that even still exists for anyone), but it works acceptably well even over very modest DSL or satellite internet connections.

Incentivized

• Easy to setup on a client PC or server for access
• Organizes client connections by gatekeeper so it is easy to find what you need
• File transfer option is great for uploading files to client servers

• During initial setups it can be a little confusing.
• The look and feel is a little rigid. It feels like it is in need of a smoother UI update.
• When a new user is introduced to webex and they are asked to share their desktop, it maybe a little difficult for the user to navigate to the correct buttons.

• Java based. Always an issue. I know they are working on this and it will be Javaless if we need it. I know that Java can cause issues across the board and I understand the need of it, but it does not make it any better when there are Java issues.
• Stronger integration with the Active Directory. Currently its only read-only, which is good and bad.
• I would love to see an App. I know they are working on this as well.

The Enterprise package we purchased (Event Center, Remote Support, Meeting Center, and Training Center) for 100 users is the same annual price as GoToMeeting for 25 users. We will renew as it is a package deal. If it were just WebEx Remote Support, we would not renew at all.

We are happy using securelink to access our client environments

Honestly, there are people available. But none of them will help you with your issues. They just keep assigning new service engineers who are often clueless.

As a user of Cisco Webex Support, I have never had to contact Cisco for technical support as it is a very easy to use tool.

Incentivized

The employees at Securelink have always been responsive and seem to be invested in the success of my company. They truly understand what their product means to us so if there is a problem, they are always willing to help. In the rare event that something is found on their end, they will be proactive and reach out to someone to help and get something on calendar for a fix

I would say that Cisco Webex Support stacks up pretty evenly in capability, but in some regards (video clarity, toll-free access, etc.) they were even better. Where they did provide a better solution for toll-free access on audio bridges, their audio quality was worse for those that wanted to use VoIP for the audio conference bridge.

Securelink seems to work better than LogMein for a large enterprise group. Our company has over 10,000 different connections and securelink manages them well.

• WebEx Support Center works pretty excellently for us as we are a small shop. We are experienced and have pretty good skill sets. WebEx Support Center is an excellent product for our use cases with our users and client to troubleshoot issues.
• WebEx Support Center is more expensive than our previous product MXIE or Logmein. It has a more user-friendly UI, and overall performance is better and reliable.

Incentivized

• I've found that Securelink allows me to get a vendor access to an application for support purposes much faster than a provisioned VPN account and the red tape around this. I can set up a vendor to access an application suite in a half hour and it will be more secure than regular provisioning.
• The ROI is yet to be seen on this, but it certainly makes Compliance, Internal Audit, and Legal very happy, which helps everybody.
• Internally, there is much more push back and it has been problematic. For a tech, to have to log in to a server and navigate to a system is considered cumbersome, when before all they had to do was open up Putty or RDP to a server to get in. The only way to combat this is to force them to use Securelink by removing rights. Near impossible for the domain admins.