Computers that fix themselves. For hardware vendors, this can mean not only happier customers but also big savings in the customer support department.
Internet phones are one example.
The company expects some big payoffs. Motive is starting out with self-service technical support portals on the Web. Announced yesterday, Motive Solo is a tool that help desks can use to build self-repair services for customers. Motive analyzed 40,000 support calls supplied by Microsoft Corp. and identified the simple and repeated problems that could be effectively automated though self-service. According to Motive, simple and repeated problems account for 30 percent of a company's support labor costs.