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May 27, 2004
Virtual Meetings
Posted by Laura Rich at 4:41 PM
One of the coolest things to happen at the intersection of small businesses and technology has to be the development of software that makes it possible to conduct meetings from afar. Power up your computer and your clients may be staring back at you from the other end. Staring with smiles, of course.
But so-called conference meetings only work well when the software being used actually, uh, works well itself.
In this month's issue of PC Magazine the editors have gone to the trouble of testing out three such offerings. Here's how they came out:
Avecomm: This software does not offer video conferencing, but it is great for sharing applications, an essential aspect if you plan to use PowerPoint presentations, Web tours or any other software you might want to share. It also features the following: whiteboard and annotation tools; individual and group chat; file-transfer capabilities.
Macromedia Breeze Live: PC Magazine recommends this software for less interactive meetings, mainly in situations where you're presenting to others. The way to get around this is to make everyone a presenter, but that can get awkward, too. Here are some of the plusses: slide presentations, application sharing, Web tours, polling, instant messaging, chat, file sharing, whiteboard, and note taking.
Raindance Meeting Edition: This one received the highest endorsement from PC Magazine, which called it "the best of the products we've tested for small, impromptu meetings (even better than WebEx, in fact)." Raindance offers a familiar experience, according to the magazine's editors, who note its "Windows-like feel and intuitive drop-down menus and task panes.
The story is not available online, except to subscribers. You can learn more about these products at their sites:
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Many of our clients are using the meeting capabilities built into MSN messenger. For those that need a more robust platform they are using Microsoft's Live Meeting. It seamlessly integrates in with the same applications you use now and allows for online collaboration.
Our company just purchased Macromedia Breeze and it's great! The interface is really slick and it's a "breeze" to use. Everyone that has used it has been very impressed. I have seen all of the leading software for web conferencing, and I was most impressed with Breeze. Plus, the price was right--Breeze was the obvious choice for us.
Comparing Microsoft meeting to the new Raindance Meeting Edition is like comparing cars. Yes, they both offer similar features, but its how the features are offered. Raindance has come out with the Ferrari of the market compared to Microsoft's VW. Yes, both good cars, but offer different types of functionality. I have had the opportunity to use the new Raindance release and it is unbelievable. Since it is integrated with your phone, you never have to dial out again. It enables your PC to dial out to participants from a drop down menu. If I am on a sales call and need to add a third party, Raindance allows me access my Outlook contacts and simply double click on the phone number, and it dials out to that person. No holding, no pauses, automatically dials out to that person. If I need Raindance customer support, I dial 00 and a Raindance operator comes on line. I don't have to dial out to another number and wait for a third party support operator to come on.
The real strength of this product is the ability to provide interactive capabilities that require real time file or application sharing. Raindance saves everyone's changes and to print those changes during the meeting. Think of the possibities, Application Engineers and Product Managers, Marketing and PR agencies, EAI implementations. With Microsoft, only the moderator can print the changes that they have made. A huge differentiator that is never asked when evaluating collaboration tools. If you are using anyone else's tool right now, try it yourself. Bring up a document have someone come on line and try and markup and print a document from the PC with the changes. You can also save those changes to bring up and work on again at a later time. So powerful, truly different then the store and forward solutions on the market today. This is just one of many features that needs to be seen to understand why PC Magazine has given it so much praise. Email me if your interested in hearing more, such as how it can upload a 40 slide ppt presentation from your PC into your meeting in less then two minutes....Try that with M/S Meeting or Webex.
Thanks,
Michael
We tried several solutions and found the webex service offered by Communique conferencing (http://www.communiqueconferencing.com) to work best for our needs. They offered a competitive pay-as-you-go pricing to start and we recently switched to monthly licenses as our usage increased. The thing i like best besides the technology is the customer support. I cannot recall going past three rings to get help on the phone when we need it.
Just curious, anyone using NetMeeting? Our product ships on either Windows 2000 or XP Pro and I use NetMeeting to access our testing computers through a VPN connection all the time. There are a few screen refresh issues but it seems to be a free workable option.
I'd be interested in any pros and cons you could think of.
Try that with M/S Meeting or Webex.
Please check out our site http://www.thtweb.com/international_conferencing.php . We specialize in international web conferencing and international audio conferencing. We offer our international customers the ability to provide in-country, toll free access numbers so their customers can attend a Webinar, conference call or training session or collaboration on documents without having to bear the cost of the international phone call. The customer can pay for the entire conference call, at a reduced rate, in US dollars. We go to over 40 countries and offer a great advantage to VOIP solutions that rely on unpredictable international bandwidth to the US. THTWeb is our international marketing brand.
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