New options for secure remote access

Big companies with booming remote-access demands face some tough choices - widen the circle of IPSec VPN users, invest in an additional Secure Sockets Layer VPN product or service, or let users manage their own connections by sanctioning remote PC control services such as Citrix GoToMyPC, or products such as PCAnywhere or Virtual Network Computing, a free utility. (Click here for more).

Until now, there hasn't been a way to offer quick and inexpensive remote control without giving up management control and tight security. But 3am Labs, a new company run by the team that developed RemotelyAnywhere remote control and administration software, this month is debuting three products that aim to do just that: Provide highly secure PC remote access and administrative tools to manage users' connections. And two of the three products are free.

"Not just for some 30-day trial. We mean free forever," says company CEO Michael Simon.

Similar to GoToMyPC, the LogMeIn service lets users access a desktop PC from any Web-enabled PC, handheld or phone. LogMeIn connections are SSL encrypted, but the service also incorporates Windows authentication policies into existing security schemes such as RSA SecurID, and allows wireless one-time passwords. When a user accesses the Logmein.com site, he's authenticated, and then the LogMeIn gateway forwards the encrypted traffic between a client and a host.

The service works with LogMeIn Scout, a new management tool that's also free. Scout finds all remote-access products deployed on the network, and lets you define and enable LogMeIn usage policies by users, groups of users or machine. You can give some users/groups remote control rights only, others upload/download rights, and others administration rights. GoToMyPC offers similar management features but only in the corporate version, not the personal or small-business editions.

A third product, LogMeIn Pro, costs $12.95 per user per month and is geared to those who need to be fully productive while working at a remote system, not just grab a file on the run. One-button file synchronization makes it easy to keep track of files between two systems. An FTP-like utility eases file uploads and downloads. A "click to share" feature lets you share large files across the Web. A remote printing feature lets you target a file on your corporate system and print it locally.

Because the products are free, IT administrators can use LogMeInScout only to monitor and control remote access connections on the network. Users can download multiple copies of the client onto numerous PCs and other devices, such as media servers or network-attached storage boxes, to access music, video and photos.

How will 3am Labs make money? Simon points to the popularity of GoToMyPC and VNC, the latter of which has 60,000 free downloads per month.

"Our free version's a great alternative to VNC. It's more secure and easier to use, and integrates with Scout. Those 60,000 downloads are up for grabs. If we can get 2 million people to use the free version, we can get a couple of hundred thousand to buy LogMeInPro," Simon says.