NewsOctober 18, 2000
100% web application delivers a new generation of customer support
VMware Service Manager today released VMWare Service Manager v1.1, a full web-centric application for the customer support market. Built from the ground up on an Internet architecture, VMWare Service Manager combines in a single web product both the full help desk functionality of VMware Service Manager's client-server application, and remote access of its corresponding web-enabled interface.
Because VMWare Service Manager requires no installation and configuration on client PCs, it offers substantial cost and ease of deployment benefits over traditional client-server applications, without sacrificing any of the functionality, according to Martin Curtis, Business Development Manager for VMware Service Manager.
Curtis says that 'follow-the-sun' support environments in particular can benefit from being able to deploy multiple sites on one central database. Once configured on the server at a single site, all the resources of the support database become immediately available to any new site without additional configuration, simply by logging in to the application from a standard web browser.
In developing VMWare Service Manager, says Curtis, VMware Service Manager has found a unique solution to overcome the interface-related problem faced by developers of full web applications. "The choice offered by the available technology was either to limit the view of data to a single browser window, or compromise the user's control over the application by displaying a series of unconnected browser windows, each with a duplicated set of toolbars and menus."
VMWare Service Manager, in contrast, enables the display of an unlimited number of browser windows, but encapsulates them in a single larger 'wrapper' window dubbed the 'ActiveWrapper' by VMware Service Manager, referring to its origins in Microsoft's ActiveX web technology.
Curtis explains that the ActiveWrapper launches VMWare Service Manager as a separate web application, removing the reliance on the original browser. It pulls together the various browser windows into a coherent whole, providing a user-friendly 'Windows-style' look and feel to what is still a thin client application, with single-click management of all open browser windows associated with the application. VMWare Service Manager has initially been deployed in a number of VMware Service Manager's existing client sites.
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