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GWI Software Pushes the Help Desk Software Bar Higher; Releases c.Support Version 8.0

Posted on: Wednesday, 1 April 2009, 12:12 CDT

VANCOUVER, Wash., April 1 /PRNewswire/ -- On its 17th anniversary, GWI Software announces the release of c.Support Version 8.0, a web-based help desk software solution powerful and flexible enough to accommodate service desks of varying size and process requirements.

A Fundamentally New Help Desk Software Package

Incorporating numerous user interface and "under the hood" enhancements, c.Support 8.0 provides significant performance improvements and additional management tools to make support centers more proactive and cost effective. "In a time when many companies have reduced or even suspended R&D on their products, we have committed to our customers to make an even larger investment in our product," commented Jill Roberts, VP of Development at GWI Software. "Having survived a few of these economic downturns in our 17-year history, we have learned that it is more important than ever to keep our product moving forward. This release is one of our largest development efforts since the inception of c.Support and lays groundwork for a new round of significant product enhancements in the next 18 to 24 months."

New View Methodology

The evolution of c.Support 8.0's enhancements center around a complete redesign of the solution's data view methodology, which now enables better performance in scalable enterprise deployments. Statistics show that average page loads are five times faster and node selections are twice as fast. "As we see larger and larger support organizations purchasing our solution, speed becomes a factor," said Ryan Terrell, VP of Sales for GWI Software. "Increasing the volumes of data we can handle makes our application more valuable to our existing customers, and it opens up opportunities to compete for larger deals in the future."

View Designer

Populating Desktop tabs with custom content is simple through a new View Designer, which enables users to pull information from practically any record in the system, apply filters and sorting selections, and order/display columns to individual requirements. c.Support users with the need to modify a data view to meet any requirement will now have the freedom to design ad hoc, tailored views in a snap.

Chart Designer

Managers require the ability to distill lots of information quickly and c.Support 8.0's new Chart Designer is a great enhancement to bolster this capability. The Chart Designer leverages existing views and graphically represents information in a wide variety of chart and gauge types, including gauges that dynamically change color as thresholds are approached and exceeded. c.Support 8.0 introduces the use of Microsoft(R) Silverlight(TM) as an option to further enhance charting capabilities.

Enhanced User Interface

Additions to the user interface include the ability to create custom desktop tabs such as a user would find in Internet Explorer(R) or Firefox(R). Allowing users to customize the data they see is critical to enhancing the usability of the application. Tab sets can be created globally or individually as dictated by configuration settings. Desktop tabs can contain either data views that have been created with the new View Designer or any number of custom charts or gauges created with the new Chart Designer. An administrator making the same data available to everyone can set specific views or charts globally or on a user-by-user basis.

Alerts

c.Support 8.0's Alert feature is a powerful new way to enhance accountability and awareness in your service desk. When a predetermined threshold is exceeded, display an alert on c.Support 8.0's tab views or send an email or page. "The implications of this new feature are far-reaching," said Andrew Stevens, Network Services Manager for the State of Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents. "I could be in a management meeting and be alerted that a critical threshold is about to be exceeded."

Customers Love the Changes

"The user interface and speed enhancements are significant to our continued success with GWI Software's c.Support," commented Jarod Johnson, IT Project Manager for Atlas Energy Resources. "GWI's attention to 'under the hood' work shows they have a vested interest in moving the product forward and meeting the needs of companies like ours as our support needs evolve and grow."

In related news, GWI Software also announced record revenues for 2008 with new license sales increasing over 30% from previous years. In 2008 GWI took occupancy of its new 16,000 sq. foot corporate headquarters in the Uptown Village area of Vancouver, Washington and increased headcount to its highest levels since the dot com boom of the late 1990s. "After 17 years we continue to remain very relevant in the support industry," commented Daren Nelson, founder and CEO of GWI Software. "I am proud of the track record we have established and proud that we continue to keep 100% of our employment in the United States."

About GWI Software

GWI Software (www.gwi.com) is a leader in providing powerful, yet flexible support solutions for IT help desk applications. With 3,000 installations in organizations worldwide, GWI's highly customizable service automation solutions are used by companies such as Panasonic, State of Missouri, SAIC, Check Free, and Telesat Canada. The company is privately held and based in Vancouver, Washington.

Pricing and Availability

c.Support 8.0 is available in Incident Management and Service Desk editions. Both are commercially available to new customers now. A scheduled upgrade program for existing GWI Software users under a current maintenance contract will begin on April 6, 2009, with general availability of the upgrade download available on July 1, 2009. For further information please call GWI Software at 1-888-494-7638 or email sales@gwi.com.

c.Support is a registered trademark of GWI Software. Other parties' trademarks or service marks are the property of their respective owners and should be treated as such.

SOURCE GWI Software

Source: PR Newswire

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