iYogi, Support.com, Geek Squad Battle for the Tech Support Title

As gear support goes virtual, how do two upstarts fare against Best Buy's Geek Squad?

BY Ben Paynter | June 1, 2010

Tackling computer glitches yourself is so 2008. "About 15% of home computers are infected with malware so fixing them has gone the way of lawn-mower service -- it's no longer a do-it-yourself thing," says Kurt Scherf, a technology analyst with Parks Associates. Scherf estimates Americans spent a whopping $4 billion on tech support last year. That number should grow to at least $6.4 billion by 2013, and remote help is poised to drive much of that expansion. An early look at the fight:

	iYogi	Support.com	Geek Squad
*Service offering*	$140 per year; one-time fixes start at $20; 24/7 remote support. PC only.	$199 per year; one-time fixes start at $49; 24/7 remote support. PC only.	Walk-in help desks at all 1,070 Best Buys; house calls; and oh yeah, remote help. Both PC and Mac.
*Target demographic/translation*	50+, well-to-do, "later users," i.e., older people having problems accessing the Google.	30+, middle income, "tech pragmatic," i.e., business pros who value their time.	"Service-minded civilians," i.e., people who will pay $40 to get a quick tune-up on a brand-new Mac.
*Aspirations*	"We want to be the FedEx of support," says CEO Uday Challu.	"We are Geek Squad over the Internet," says CEO Josh Pickus.	Er, it already is Geek Squad.
*Meet your IT guy*	More than 3,000 "yogis" in call centers in India	600 "solutions engineers" in home offices in North America	20,000 "agents" in stores; about 100 virtual agents in the U.S.
*Oddest feature*	Technician profiles come with phonetic pronunciations of their names.	A message board allows the tech-needy to answer questions for each other.	You can pick your own agent via an online profile, just like Internet dating!
*Annual growth (revenue)*	200% to 300% (estimated $70-to-$80 million in fiscal 2011)	157% ($17.5 million in 2009)	Best Buy doesn't break out data (estimated $1-to-$1.5 billion in 2009)
*Final take*	Low-cost leader	U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!	Drivers only

From Issue 146 | June 2010