3am Labs Seeks Solution Providers For New Program
The Woburn, Mass.-based startup hopes that a combination of flexible payment plans, links to its internal e-commerce system and collateral will attract and retain partners looking for cost-effective ways to support SMBs and other customers. The program will be unveiled on Tuesday.
3am Labs already has about 50 partners for the new program and hopes to increase that to between 250 and 500 this year, according to a company spokesperson.
A few VARs that have already piloted the software are bullish both on the technology and the flexibility 3am is providing in terms of payment and support.
"If I adopted their system as it was, 50 licenses at $65 per license, that's a big $3,000 check to write," said Rex Winn, founder of Code-Frog, an outsourced IT firm in Boise, Idaho. "Now I can pay in installments at $250 a month over the phone."
Winn said the product freed up one employee who had been dedicated to visiting remote sites for troubleshooting and maintenance. Use of LogMeIn let the company put that employee to work on development, Winn said. "They basically multiplied my workforce," he said.
The product also expands the universe of supportable computers. and can run Windows as far back as Windows 98, he said. "Before this, the only PCs we had a chance of reaching were running Windows XP," he said.
Winn had used Citrix Systems' Go To My PC program but found it pricier and not as functional.
Dave Ledoux, founder of Doctor Dave Consulting, Waltham, Mass., is equally pleased with 3am.
With the software, he or one of his technicians can e-mail a link to anyone sitting at a machine. When they click on it, the remote session initiates and they can "walk away while we work on their machine," he noted.
Ledoux said the product makes supporting home users economically feasible. His company offers such a service for $55 per year to monitor and update home PCs. About 70 percent of his business is small companies with five to 20 seats, with the rest split between larger businesses and residential accounts.