Teamviewer
Teamviewer is a remote desktop application. Basically, what it means is that you can connect to other computers and control those computers from your own computer. From the presentation, there are a few points that I can highlight.
Interface
According to the team, the interface is not intuitive, and I agree with them. For example, there's one menu with both a 'gear' shaped button and a 'spanner' shaped button. In any other app, both of these symbols usually means 'settings'. Here, they are functionally different, which can confuse new users that have just only started to use Teamviewer.Teamviewer does have video tutorials on their site, but I think the presenting team made a good point. It would be easier for users to access the tutorial on the app itself, doing a hands on approach to learn how to use the app. Although that is a good idea, another good idea would be to improve the UI so that it's more intuitive and easier to learn for first-time user. By making sure that these first-time user stays through the learning curve, Teamviewer will be able to get more users.
Gaming
For me, the most interesting thing that they talked about is about extending the commercial potential of Teamviewer. According to them, Teamviewer has unrealized potential. This application can potentially be used, for example, to extend the current console gaming industry. Instead of connecting the console to the television, the display would be in a mobile device that the gamer uses.Personally, I think there are one more important issue before something like this can be implemented. The main problem is the input. Currently, there are some video games that are originally made for console, but now available on mobile devices. To do the inputs, they create on-screen buttons for users to press. However, in my personal opinion, not all video games can be extended using this approach. Usually, modern console games have a more sophisticated gaming input commands compared to mobile games, and as such, it's not suitable for mobile use.
Education
On the other hand, I can definitely see the education expansion working. Sharing screen is a good idea to help others learn a new application. For example, when we learn how to code, a collaborative coding (text-only) platform would be good enough. With more graphical application such as Photoshop, Teamviewer would be able to help. When a student has a problem with their app, the instructor can connect to their computer and see what's wrong.Overall, although Teamviewer is a good app in general, it suffers from UI that is not easy to learn for new users. One of the presenting team's suggestion, extending it to gaming, is also not doable right now due to the incompatibility of console game and mobile touch screen. I don't see such problem with education though, other than the potential technical issues of lags.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI've used Teamviewer in the past for one purpose, and one purpose only. It was simple to connect to my other machine just to check out what's wrong.
Other than that, it serves me no purpose as I would rather wait, and go back to my other machine to use it.
So, if it could be expanded to gaming or even education, that would definitely hit the market with a better purpose.
As you mentioned, it would not make sense to play most games using the tablet. Perhaps a connection with a separate controller could solve that. Those are really interesting things that Teamviewer can look at.
As for education, I beg to differ, as I feel that it would be much easier and faster for the teacher to walk over to the student's desk. No waiting to connect to the other screens, no frustrations on teaching the staff to use teamviewer, one less program to debug when something goes wrong. :D
Ming Yi
I think another bigger issue with gaming is the reliability. Gaming requires decent framerate, which means a decent mobile cellular network connection is required if we want to maximise mobility. I think only few first world countries have reached an acceptable network quality to do VNC + Gaming at the moment.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really good at technical stuffs right now, but I wonder whether connecting to the console locally can fix that problem.
DeleteHi Nathan,
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing about Teamviewer is that it's very unlike the other apps that were reviewed in the various presentations. It's more targeted for businesses who pay for their product and their worldwide support. In that sense, if Teamviewer wants to gain more paying customers, they need to carefully think about the industries that they want to diversify into.
The gaming industry, like what you mentioned, will be very challenging. Their core product does not have the features to immediately make off-site gaming work. They will surely need to decide if they have the resources to make it possible, and even that, will they be able to get more paying customers?
I think the main takeaway from this is that as a company gains a larger user base, it's important to figure out the direction of the company and define the core product well. This ensures that the company does not divert too much of its resources into industries where the opportunity cost is too high.
Teamviewer is a pretty good example, in that their company does one thing, and does it well (good enough for paying customers).
Hi Nathan,
ReplyDeleteIt’s a very good critique.
Compare to other apps presented this Monday, Teamviewer has relative less competitors. Remote control is quite technical-demanding, meaning that it is not easy to create a such app with good and stable performance. Also, the market of this kind of softwares is not as board and hot as instant message or music or video streaming. However, as you mentioned, the market is not wide ‘for now’, but has very huge potential. Teamviewer is designed general purpose, but when narrow down the target to a more specific area, we will find a lot of new features to develop to suit some specific needs.
"I wish we would have discharged those components before," the PR manager conceded, in what is potentially the modest representation of the truth of the year. http://www.4shared.com/video/8JEwDeCGce/Download_TeamViewer_11_Crack_F.html
ReplyDelete