Specifications
Page 9 Blue Chips Magazine —December 2010
- Newton’s Telecom Diction-
ary: The Official Dictionary of
Telecommunications & the Inter-
net (1999)
LapLink has won acclaim for four-
teen generations of award-winning
connectivity products and earned the
trust of more than 15 million customers
worldwide who transfer, synchronize,
share, and remotely access billions of
les per week, securely, and reliably.
LapLink continues to explore and rene
innovative instant connectivity solutions
for home, business, and enterprise use.
LapLink products have won innumer-
able awards over the years.
A Little History Is In Order Here
Overview. In spite of the current
economic conditions, the personal
computing industry continues to grow
at a rapid rate, but most explosively, the
handheld variety. In the US and other
mature markets, the majority of PC
sales represent either an additional PC
or a replacement PC. In addition, such
users have become very reliant on ap-
plication software and data residing on
their existing PC. This reliance, in turn,
has resulted in the development of new
technology designed to save users time
and expense - migration software
Migration software. Migration
software is a relatively new sub-category
within the “PC Deployment” utility
category. Most deployment software
can be classied as either image-based
(so-called, “ghosting” software) or
facilitate ease of data transfer. Within
the migration sub-category, there are
several utilities that provide a higher
level of customization, moving user set-
tings as well as data from one computer
to another automatically. However, the
industry’s leading migration software,
PCmover, is also able to transfer entire
software applications along with les
and settings from PC to PC.
The transfer of files conun-
drum. Hardware analysts estimate
the average computer’s lifespan to last
from two to ve years with three years
being the average for ‘normal’ usage, but
then too, I don’t fall into that “normal”
category, which may account for most of
my problems. ;-} It is safe to calculate
that in 2010, with personal computers
rst appearing twenty nine years ago,
that most consumers and businesses
are on their third, fourth, fth, or even
sixth PC (FYI I’ve even got a working
Dell 233 MHZ laptop that has Win 98
on it). What this means is that with each
new PC the user has had to manually
transfer les someway, rework settings
and reinstall applications to recreate
the usability and personality of their
old systems, thus powering the growth
of migration software.
Enter PCmover. PCmover, the
world’s leading migration software util-
ity was built to eliminate the traditional
rituals that come with the purchase of a
new PC. It offers an automated ‘hands
off’ solution that allows users to recre-
ate their old computer’s personality
and functionality on their new PC while
experiencing minimal downtime and
reducing costs. Each user or employee
has an array of personalized settings
that they adjust throughout the lifespan
of their PC to effectively maximize their
productivity. For instance, sales people
might rely heavily on customized e-mail
templates, selective word processing fea-
tures and spreadsheet software while a
teenager in high school might rely more
on his favorite ‘play lists,’ photograph
or video utilities and personalized sig-
natures for his/her e-mail application.
In each of these instances, the usability
of their computer is inextricably linked
to the investment in personalizing their
“Personal Computer”.
Business migration. Laplink
reports that for businesses deploying de-
partment-wide upgrades, the ability to
automatically mass migrate each ‘digital
personality’ is essential to minimizing
employee downtime, reducing cost and
increasing productivity. Manually re-in-
stalling software (often including unique
or customized software), transferring
settings and documents, and keeping
track of each detail to be changed on the
new PC is a time consuming task for an
IT force, resulting in an estimated cost
(See graphic) of over $300 per migration
in labor expense and lost productivity.
Note. It’s cost me an awful lot
more than that in time, as well as,
money, that’s for sure, to do my
own upgrade to Win7!
Post upgrade costs must also be
considered as employees searching for
lost les, understanding new features
and installing additional applications
that were on their original PCs can
increase downtime dramatically. Post
upgrade, computer help desks see an
increase in call volume of up to 30% -
50% in the rst thirty days.
Current migration market. In
the current migration market, there are
a few well-known programs: Detto In-
tellimover, CA Desktop DNA, and
Windows Easy Transfer, to name
a few. These three products can only
migrate les and settings from an old
PC to a new PC (See graphic). Although
it is useful to automatically migrate
les and settings, an employee will still
waste considerable time reinstalling
new applications or requiring an IT
professional to perform the reinstal-
lations manually. Most applications
require ‘keys’ or licenses to function
and this information is often misplaced
– leaving the user to nd CD jackets,
CD inserts or call customer support to
retrieve the necessary information for
a reinstallation.
PCmover features. A few of
the features that make PCmover the
global leader in migration include:
One Step Solution. Migrates ap-
plications, settings and les in a single
step to effectively recreate the personal-
ity of an old PC onto a new PC.
Selectivity Options. Allows the
user to choose which applications and
folders to move to a new PC therefore
eliminating the need to uninstall and
reinstall applications manually.
Multiple Connectivity Op-
tions. Laplink USB cable, Parallel
cable, LAN, WLAN, Removable media
(CD-R/RW or DVD-R/RW), Windows
Easy Transfer Cable (Laplink, Belkin,
Vivanco, and other brands).