If your business requires frequent one-on-one meetings, say for brainstorming sessions, yet lacks a sufficient travel budget, you might be wise to cancel those expensive plane and hotel reservations and invest instead in one of these online Web conferencing services. According to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, his company will save nearly $40 million in travel expenses this year using Live Meeting, for example. However, even small businesses can benefit from these services.
What you can expect from these Web conferencing services varies with the price, of course. The most affordable, Citrix GoToMeeting, is a bare-bones presentation service that uses conventional teleconferencing centers for the audio portion while presenting PowerPoint and shared desktop presentations via desktop PCs. Raindance Meeting Edition goes one step further, adding whiteboard capabilities. Convoq ASAP Pro 2.0 takes Web conferencing a step further, adding one-to-one video and Voice over IP (VoIP) to allow participants to both see and hear content over their desktop PCs. There's also a free version of Convoq that's limited to two users.
Of course, the elite packages--Macromedia Breeze, Microsoft Live Meeting, and WebEx--offer the most bells and whistles, including a whiteboard presentation space, IM chat, multiple-party video, quick polling, and the ability to record a meeting for later playback (useful for sales presentations or tutorials). But they also charge more.
| |
WebEx Meeting Center
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Microsoft Live Meeting
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Macromedia Breeze
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Convoq ASAP Pro 2.0
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Citrix GoToMeeting
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Raindance Meeting Edition
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| CNET rating |
7.6 |
7.0 |
6.6 |
6.3 |
7.0 |
7.3 |
| Cost per 5 users | Express: $375 per month; unlimited meetings
Pro: $995 per month | $375 per month; unlimited meetings | $375 per month; unlimited meetings | *Up to 2 users: free; unlimited meetings
* Up to 15 users: $249 year; unlimited meetings | * Up to 10 users: $49 per month; unlimited meetings | $274.95 per month; unlimited use |
| Participants must install apps on desktop? | Yes; uses Java | Yes, uses ActiveX | Yes, uses Flash | Yes, uses Flash | Yes; uses Java | Yes; uses ActiveX |
| Host OS | Windows; Mac OS 9.0 | Windows | Windows | Windows | Windows | Windows |
| Attendee OS | Windows; Mac OS 10.2+; Linux 7+ | Windows; Mac OS 10.3; Solaris 9.0 | Windows, Mac OS | Windows; Mac OS 9.0; Solaris | Windows | Windows |
| Browsers supported | Internet Explorer 5.0; Netscape 4.7; Safari 1.1; Mozilla Firefox 1.4 | Internet Explorer 6.0; Netscape 7.2; Mozilla Firefox 1.4; Safari 1.2 | Internet Explorer 4.0; Netscape 4.0; Mozilla Firefox 1.4; Safari 1.1; Opera 7.0 | Internet Explorer 5.0; Netscape 4.7 | Internet Explorer 5.0; Netscape 6.0; Mozilla Firefox 1.0 | Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher |
| Record and playback capabilities? | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Whiteboard | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| VoIP | Yes | One-way only | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Video | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Voice-
conferencing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Polling | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
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7.0 out of 10
6.3 out of 10
