Hi Guys,
I am trying to toss up between the two at the moment.
I currently provide computer support for small businesses and a few home users, and I am looking for a nice easy and preferably cheap solution for remote desktop support.
I cant tell which logmein package to get, because there are so many, teamviewer seems so much simpler.
My questions is, whats better and better priced? Keep in mind I am in Australia and latencey can be an issue with third party products like this as well.
@GoTo
30 Spice ups
jay6111
(Jay6111)
2
I dont know about teamviewer and depending on your needs for remote support you could try the free version of logmein for testing purposes. At least then you aren’t out anything and it plays nicely in SW with the logmein plugin.
-Jay
Thanks Jay,
so the free one integrated with spiceworks as well? That might be interesting.
most of the time the actual devices I need to support arent in spiceworks though so thats why I wasnt too excited with that plugin lol.
jay6111
(Jay6111)
4
Yep the free one but it can run outside of SW. I have one free account strictly for work and SW as needed, one personal (non SW) account to connect to my home machines and friends, and another one for a few clients (also non SW) I support.
It works great and so far no complaints.
Good luck. 
-Jay
easy to manage?
what about if you needed to manage like 50 comptuers, would it be easy?
jay6111
(Jay6111)
6
I think it is one of the more easy ones. It does encrypt your connection which is great for security but could slow things down (never noticed myself or had an issue) for you. Also I think there might be a limit on the number of PC’s you can have under one account. Would have to check on that.
For ease though I suggest installing it (create an account and its a small install on the machine you want to control) on a machine you have readily open access to and try it out. Most you’re out is a 2 minute install.
Hope this helps!
-Jay
-Jay
My two cents on this. I’ve been a LogMeIn user for about three years now. I support quite a few SMB and lots of (very) SMB. I started out with the free and have migrated to about 29 Pro accounts now. The Pro clients just on servers at the client locations. I offset the cost with minimal cost SLA with the clients so basically the cost is built in to me supporting them.
I now pay for the Central also, which allows me to add users to access accounts. Numerous owners after I showed them the advantages of access their own PC’s at a saving over GO-to-my-PC purchase subscriptions through me to upgrade their personal PC at work to a Pro client allowing them to transfer files and print at home. That’s the disadvantage to just free accounts you can’t add access to other users. I add about $10 to the standard Pro cost to help me offset the cost of Central interface.
I looked at Teamviewer, but I didn’t want to be tied to hardware in the office. Since I’m a one man shop I still sometimes have to go to a client site (heaven forbid). LogMeIn allows me thw flexibility to be at another client site and if I get a call easily log in to their site from wherever in the state I happen to be at then time. The Pro client is nice in the aspect that if a server drops off line I get an email on my phone telling me that server is offline, disk space low, event didn’t run etc.
I’ve been burnt on purchasing software that ties me to the office, probably have$3 to 4 thousand worth in the corner collecting dust now. As Jay6111 says, try the free and you’ve lost nothing but a little time. I have 28 server’s and 390+ PC’s on it now. The free keep me afloat through a dry spell, so I guess you could say I’m a huge fan of LMI.
Hope this helps also
2 Spice ups
Logmein has always done right by me…
jay6111
(Jay6111)
9
Nice write up wartech and you hit on a lot of key points I forgot to mention. It’s nice to get an opinion from someone with as much experience with the product as you have. I totally forgot the best feature that you mentioned…the ability to access any of the machines on any of my accounts from any internet connection with a secure connect.
-Jay
One more thumbs up for Logmein. Been using it for 4 years to manage clients and computers all over the place.
khanson
(Kendall)
11
You might also want to look into LogMeIn’s new freebie offering at join.m e .
Yeah, LMI Free is the way to get started in this. Great write-up there, warsawtech!
Kendall, nice find, I hadn’t heard of that, I’ll be keeping an eye on it.
dariena
(DarienA)
13
Hmmm looks like logmein is going after the gotomeeting crowd. No really surprised about that, just wonder what took them so long actually. I’ve been a logmein account user for YEARS. As a solo IT shop I use it to manage my access to home pc’s, the occasional exec pc and various servers in my office. I’ve bounced back between pro/free accounts over the years as necessary and have generally speaking always been happy with the service.
jaguar
(Jaguar)
14
warsawtech wrote:
I’ve been burnt on purchasing software that ties me to the office
Teamviewer is usable anywhere, and if you pay for it, you can manage saved clients simply by logging in, from anywhere. Also, god forbid you have to, install the client on a machine, tell them to go to teamviewer.com and click ‘join a session’, problem solved there. -shrug-
We use TeamViewer here. We compared it against LogMeIn Pro², but the pricing was ridiculous (over $10,000 per year with LogMeIn, versus about $5,000 one-time-payment with TeamViewer). TeamViewer is great and doesn’t have much lag; you can also use it for file transfers, presentations, (ala WebEx) and as a poor-man’s VPN. Their main server is in Germany, although I’m sure they have others throughout the world. Maybe even one in your neck of the woods!
1 Spice up
kirk
(Dogs)
16
I have looked into using logmein for our network and so far have been blocked by our consultant who use’s teamviewer.
I like Teamviewer but the Logmein phone ability is what sold me - i have lots of nokias runing symbian and htc’s running windows phone 6 out in the field and the abilty to take control and just change settings instead of talking to the handy men or engineers is a pure god send.
Just a shame managment wont buy into it.
From my point of view (and i still have to use team viewer now!) the grass def looks greener on the other side with logmein.
We looked at the mobile aspect of LogMeIn, but since probably 50% of our phones are either iPhones or Androids, with more Windows Mobile phones switching over every month, we decided that wasn’t worth the extra cost.
kirk
(Dogs)
18
Opie7423 wrote:
We looked at the mobile aspect of LogMeIn, but since probably 50% of our phones are either iPhones or Androids, with more Windows Mobile phones switching over every month, we decided that wasn’t worth the extra cost.
Our phone policy is what phone can we get on the cheapest contract with our provider for FREE - which means its an old HTS or a Nokia 
I’ll put in a vote for TeamViewer. We bought the Business license for our office ($795 one-time fee) and I have it installed on my laptop. I downloaded and set up a TeamViewer QuickSupport package that I deployed to all machines via group policy. It allows the user to just run it if they need it (no installation), rather than have it constantly running in the background. I also set up TeamViewer Host on our servers for when I need to connect to them.
I manage IT for a company of 50 with anywhere from 15-20 people out of the office at a given time. TeamViewer has been a GODSEND. As long as they can get on the Internet I can help them.
Things that turned me away from LogMeIn: Subscription pricing (very high at that for services like Rescue) and the LogMeIn client, as far as I know, requires it to not only install drivers but also be running in the background 24/7. I prefer TeamViewer QuickSupport’s cleaner, on-demand approach.
Yes, having it tied to one machine can be a disadvantage, but the answer’s pretty simple: put it on a portable machine. I’d be very shocked to hear that a mobile IT shop or worker doesn’t have a laptop available to them.
Highly recommend Join.me , LogMeIn’s new screen share/online meeting program. Just yesterday Join.me got me out of a jam when our normal screen share software was already in use by my office mate (Jason Bagby). The product worked flawlessly.