Remote Access management systems

Extent does not understand why nobody thought of it sooner, why no-one thought of compiling a software program providing a comprehensive solution for remote access system control. Certainly, the market has huge growth potential. At the end of the year 2000, the remote access hardware market is forecast to clock in at $12.2 billion, compared to $2.68 billion in 1995. DataQuest of Gartner even predicts that, in the year 2002, work contracts of 108,000,000 people worldwide will include the remote access element.

Despite the current and expected growth in this field and the high cost of the resource, remote access system managers in organizations encounter endless difficulties, according to Extent CEO Jonathan Garini (27) who is also one of its founders. "Sometimes, employees' children surfing sex sites will use remote access resources at the expense of an executive who is on a mission overseas and needs to urgently send an important report to the organization."

Extent's RBS program, says Garini, is designed to avoid situations, among other things, of the wrong order of priorities, by defining the priorities assigned to the organization's various departments at different times and various congestion periods. Take for example, the sales department which requires available lines during the day during meetings with customers, but does not require remote access in evening hours.

For executives, on the other hand, overtime at home or during trips overseas is quite common, and remote access authorization is needed during the evening hours. Distribution of the remote access resource among the various departments saves the organization a great deal of money, says Garini, since it utilizes existing infrastructure optimally, and that is sufficiently expensive. It includes the cost of telephone lines, equipment such as modem and computer, and maintenance.

To make remote access systems more efficient, Extent's program enables network utilization statistics and reports to be received in real time, as well as forecasts on the potential increase of the network. Garini says that an organization's requirements can be fed into the software, and it will produce specifications regarding how many channels are needed, for example, thereby achieving more efficient and cheaper planning of the system.

Extent's software also enables complete cost accounting and billing of the various departments in the organization according to usage of its resources. This is a spreading trend in the US and is called "chargeback". Moreover, RBS enables an organization to enforce its remote access policy in real time, and even disconnect an employee, if his department has used up its quota or breached policy.

"Globes": That is rather drastic. Is it done in practice?

Garini: "It is drastic, but organizations asked us to do it. The idea is to disconnect someone who is on the network for enjoyment and allow a manager entry. It is an extreme case but the fact that this possibility exists is an advantage. The program enables advance warning to be given - it does not suddenly disconnect a user."

The company says that RBS provides a saving of over $1 million for every 250 employees over a period of three years. The cost of the software depends on the number of users and is likely to range from $5,000 to $20,000.

The product successfully passed the beta stage last week in sixty sites worldwide, mainly among Internet service providers (ISPs). The product, says Garini, confers a large advantage on ISP companies, mainly the small and medium sized ones, since it enables them to manage user and billing systems, and "places them on the same level as major companies."

Garini is working on sharp positioning which defines a new niche. He is clearly and unequivocally marketing oriented, which is demonstrated by the process of choosing the company's name. Without sentiment, Garini sat on one end of the telephone and scanned all the names in the field on the Internet, while his partner and company CTO Yishai Levanony scanned free toll numbers in the US. The digits of these numbers can be translated into words - to include the name. The campaign took eight hours. The beta sites were obtained by aggressive advertising.

Extent's program is operated by Internet browser interface and is very well designed. It is a pity that the site, and the presentation contains errors in English.

The company, established in September '97, has so far been financed by the partners (Garini - 75%, Levanony - 25%) and through a Chief Scientist grant. The Ramat Gan company is now seeking a $2 million investment to finance establishing a marketing, sales and support system in the US.

Garini says that Extent faces indirect competition from communications hardware giants such as Cisco, and from start-up companies in the statistics and reports field, such as Concord and InfoVista. More direct competition, admits Garini, comes from Lucent.

Garini is not worried. "The giant companies are selling non-smart metal," he says, although, in another conversation, he admits that Lucent has a competitive, albeit inferior, product. In the meantime, he hopes the giants will come knocking on his door. He believes they will initially adopt the program in OEM agreements and market it for a charge, and at a later stage gratis. "I will join up with one of them, which will then have the competitive advantage on the market," says Garini.