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Dell launches ProSupport Plus for tablets, PCs

Dell is extending its ProSupport Plus effort from data centers to laptops, desktops and tablets.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

Dell on Tuesday launched ProSupport Plus, a service plan that covers PCs and tablets and aims to use predictive monitoring to head off and resolve issues.

The ProSupport Plus effort is based on Dell's Support Assist technology, which is designed to cut user time on the phone with tech support. Dell has offered ProSupport Plus for data centers and now has extended that plan to end points.

According to Dell, Pro Support Plus is available immediately in 66 countries and 19 languages via the company and its channel partners.

Doug Schmitt, vice president of Dell's global support and deployment unit, said ProSupport Plus covers all of the company's commercial notebooks, desktops and tablets. The support plan covers accidental damage such as spills and drops. There's also a keep your drive feature to keep data if at all possible.

"No one wants to lose the data on their hard drive," said Schmitt.

Schmitt said that ProSupport Plus had to be a global effort due to the travel among corporate execs. The 3-year contract runs anywhere from $79 a month to $109 a month depending on the hardware supported. Pricing is based on a three year contract and varies by system(s) and country supported. Schmitt said that Dell is looking to automate support via analytics from the data center to end devices.

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The plan includes:

  • 24x7 access to ProSupport engineers;
  • Proactive monitoring;
  • Self-service case management and parts dispatch;
  • Workflow management;
  • Dedicated account managers;
  • Hard drive retention after replacement of a device.

In its own study, Dell said it can resolve call time faster with its support over HP and Lenovo. As devices increasingly become commoditized, support has become a key factor in bulk hardware buying. The Apple-IBM partnership largely revolves around support integration for the enterprise.

One area that Dell's ProSupport Plus plan doesn't cover is smartphones. The support effort covers Dell products only.

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