jonathanwebb

@Marc-Andre

I start by saying that i don think that my1 is trying to be rude, just voicing their concerns over the changes and trying to provide some feedback.

People that used Wayk Now (like me) were confused at what happened to the product line, even after reading the blog post I wasnt that clear hence the reason i can to the forums. Removing the old functionality and then changing the name in only a few places just muddies the waters. Given that the product has taken such a change of direction do you not think it would be better rebranding it without using the Wayk name?

For example, I noticed that the Wayk Now iOS app was updated and renamed Wayk Client, however all the app branding is Wayk Now still, and the screen shots still imply that it's for adhoc remote support.

Thanks

jonathanwebb i do a simpler option (not really ideal but helps)

the is 2 of us in the company, me mainly and another lad who works for us when im struggling (part time)

we bought 1 licence for myself, then when i need help (busy day or im off ill) he just uses my user for the admin side and connects in!

since as stated above, devolutions dont limit the number of admin clients or concurrent connections, only admin users!

so in theory you could just buy one user and share that user between admins (its not ethical but it might help!)

this method wouldnt help however with LDAP, DOMAIN environments etc which again i understand for password sharing

also helps more if you have your own waykden server too!

Im afraid that would never work for us, any account sharing would result in immediate termination. You would benefit from a session/channel license agreement. Rather than breach the named agreement that you have you could have a client installed on both your computers that way.

Firstly, thank you very much for taking your time to write a detailed explanation. Whenever there are big shake ups in a product its great to see a company communicating and answering questions about those changes.

Q: I evaluated Wayk Now a few months ago but the licensing per device vs the limited feature set made it far too expensive. We have around1500 agent devices needing unattended access by 15-20 clients, however only 3-4 active Clients at once. Many of the competing (more feature rich) products offer licensing based on the number of active channels (ie Wayk Clients) rather than the total number installed. In the example above it would cost us 20 x $149.00 = $2980 per year. The solution we purchased was less 1/3 of that price. Its also far more feature rich.

A: If I understand correctly, you have a total 20 technicians, but about 5 (you said 3-4, let's make that 5) concurrent connections. With our per-user licensing model, you have to buy 20 Wayk Client licenses, hence 20x $149 = 2980 per year. Those 20 users are not limited in the number of concurrent connections, but you have to license them all. You say that the solution your purchased was 1/3 of that price (1000$) and more feature rich. How much licenses did you buy from that other product? Was it something like 5 concurrent licenses, 200$ each? Do you often hit your concurrent connection count ("channels") in practice, and is it a source of concern? Would offering a "Wayk Channel" license type meant to license concurrent connections rather than technician users, would it fix all the issues you see with our licensing, or would there be more changes needed?

Thats correct, we purchased 5 licenses and have installed our 'Client' on 20 machines. We have yet to hit the limit of 5 concurrent sessions however our account manager advised that the service would allow us to temporarily use up to 20 concurrent sessions for short periods of time. If they saw us using more than the 5 concurrent sessions on a regular basis, they would notify us, and we would need purchase additional channels. This allows us to use the product without fear of suddenly been caught short.

For some context we are a global organisation with offices in thirty countries around the world. We have around 20 technicians in different time zones but only around a third of them working at any one time which is where the active channels become more of a benefit. The same principle applies to any large organisation which has shift patterns.

Personally, i think that you should offer a mix of licensing models, per named user, per enterprise, per device and per session/channel. These options would help bring an offering to the table for everyone.

Ill try and explain why.

Per named user is great for small IT/MSP companies (1-2 people) providing support for their customers. Its inexpensive and they can easily forecast their costs which is important in these times of economic uncertainty. Id also give them the self-hosted option as a one-off fee. It could be that their customers are nervous about 'cloud' services still.

Per enterprise, everything is unlimited. No client limits, no agent limits, no channel limits, and self-hosted options. Put a soft limit of something reasonable in the TOS like 20k devices. Site licenses don't work for many companies anymore, especially with Covid. All our staff are preparing to work from home indefinitely. I don't know of any company that could use a site license for any software anymore.

Per device, this works well as a bundle. LogMeIn use to or may still offer a product called Central. In there you could install the LogMeIn software on up to 200 machines (more machines for more money) and the license was only around $200-300 per year. You could have an unlimited number of Clients and concurrent sessions. This model worked very well for small business that had multiple people that needed to connect to different devices on a regular basis. We used to see this being used in the retail space quite often for the retail operations teams to login and assist people on the store computers. This wasnt technical support, more operational support for things like stock takes etc.

Per channel/session works well for business like mine. Lots of agents and several clients but not all running at once.

Free version. I would also bring back the old Wayk Now client just as it was before, keep it as it was, were you could install it (so that UAC wasn't an issue) or run the exe without admin right. Dont allow unattended access or connecting to a central management portal. All the big players in this space offer free versions some not for commercial use but most small MSPs/IT business don't worry about that too much. There is too much free competition not to offer this. AnyDesk, TeamViewer, ConnectWise, Comodo/ITarian Remote Control, Google Remote Desktop, MeshCentral, Ammyy Admin, Windows Quick Assist, and DWService to name a few.

Q: There is Windows 10 QuickAssist, Comodo Remote Control, Mesh Central and a ton of other free commercial options available with similar or better feature sets for Wayk. If you are after a solution with commercial support then AnyDesk, TeamViewer, and several other big players offer the same thing for less.

A: I agree, however, there is relatively little commercial offering for 100% self-hosted solutions like Wayk Bastion (aside from ISL Online, which despite its name, does offer it). We don't aim to beat TeamViewer or AnyDesk at what they do best, we are simply an alternative offering that suits a different audience.

There are still some big names that will do self-hosted options but don't always advertise it. AnyDesk will provide self-hosted option upon request, DWService, MeshCentral are free self-hosted and Goverlan and ConnectWise will all provide commercially supported self-hosted options.

You mention that you see this product being aimed now as MSP's now and less about adhoc support. Do you intend to build out RMM features in to the Wayk Agent? Most of the RMM platforms that ive used in the past have had a remote-control function built in the management agent. If this is just a pure remote support tool and isnt going to be targeting RMM functions, then are you not concerned that you are pricing yourself out of the market? I keep bring up competitors (sorry!) but there are products like Comodo ONE which provide an RMM, Remote Control, Service Desk, and Endpoint Security for next to nothing, the price is so low that if you buy additional services through them (Azure services etc) they will give you the solution for free.

@Richard(s)

Can you please confirm that this is correct?

The free (for commercial use) Wayk Now! no longer exists? Its been replaced by Wayk Client (paid) however now you can now have unlimited Wayk Agents with unattended access?

So, you are swapping your licensing model from license per unattended device to license number of channels (aka Wayk Clients)?

I'd like to provide some feedback, i apologies if this comes off as negative, im not trying to be.

I evaluated Wayk Now a few months ago but the licensing per device vs the limited feature set made it far too expensive. We have around1500 agent devices needing unattended access by 15-20 clients, however only 3-4 active Clients at once. Many of the competing (more feature rich) products offer licensing based on the number of active channels (ie Wayk Clients) rather than the total number installed. In the example above it would cost us 20 x $149.00 = $2980 per year. The solution we purchased was less 1/3 of that price. Its also far more feature rich.

The separation of Wayk Client and Wayk Agent is good, however the old Wayk Now client could be configured to be a client or a server (agent).

The Wayk Client looks a bit unfinished, quite different from the UI used in RDM. It's also limited in what it can do. It needs a complete UI overall IMHO.

At this point I'm still asking myself why would i buy Wayk Client? Previously id recommended Wayk Now! to people i knew in small businesses that were looking for a simple free (for commercial use) adhoc remote support solution. However now that free version has gone im wondering why i would buy it?

There is Windows 10 QuickAssist, Comodo Remote Control, Mesh Central and a ton of other free commercial options available with similar or better feature sets for Wayk. If you are after a solution with commercial support then AnyDesk, TeamViewer, and several other big players offer the same thing for less.

So what does Wayk Client do that the others dont? Again, apologies if this comes off negatively but im just struggling to see why i would go down the route of buying Wayk, not just for my business but also for others.