Sept/Oct 2005

In one of the first big product announcements since UK-based field service management specialist Vidus was acquired by US-based @Road at the turn of last year, the company is to offer a subscription-based hosted version of its Taskforce system.

This new version, which was launched in the US in September, is known as Taskforce MSP (for Managed Service Provider), and is said to offer an on-demand automated field service delivery system for businesses of any size.

Taskforce MSP aims to improve the service delivery process by using real-time data and artificial-intelligence algorithms to give users a holistic view of the entire service delivery lifecycle, from business, strategic and operations planning through to capacity management and service fulfilment.

Other capabilities include dynamic capacity planning and control, resource management and geography management.

Originally Vidus, an offshoot of BT, tended to focus on fairly large customers involved in home service delivery. @Road, by contrast, has developed a broader customer portfolio, and has made a speciality of the hosted approach to management, in which it claims to be unique. It claims to have 140,000 and end users around the world.

The new hosted service should give smaller businesses the opportunity to sample the attractions of the Taskforce offering without buying a licence outright.