Choosing a Web conferencing solution

Small businesses looking to save money can reduce the number of offsite meetings by using Web conferencing services. We look at six, including Microsoft's updated Live Meeting service.

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 (~£22m) 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's GoToMeeting, is a bare-bones presentation service that uses conventional teleconferencing centres 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 ASAP 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.

Web conferencing applications compared
	Convoq ASAP	GoToMeeting	Macromedia Breeze	Microsoft Live Meeting 2005	Raindance Meeting Edition	WebEx Meeting Center
Editors' rating	6.3	7.0	6.7	7.0	7.3	7.6

Cost per 5 users	free for up to 2 users (unlimited meetings); $249 per year for up to 15 users (unlimited meetings)	$49 per month for up to 10 users (unlimited meetings)	$375 per month (unlimited meetings)	$375 per month (unlimited meetings)	$274.95 per month (unlimited use)	Express, $375 per month (unlimited meetings); Pro, $995 per month
Participants must install apps on desktop?	Yes, uses Flash	Yes, uses Java	Yes, uses Flash	Yes, uses ActiveX	Yes, uses ActiveX	Yes, uses Java
Host OS	Windows	Windows	Windows	Windows	Windows	Windows, Mac OS 9.0
Attendee OS	Windows, Mac OS 9.0, Solaris	Windows	Windows, Mac OS	Windows, Mac OS 10.3, Solaris 9.0	Windows	Windows, Mac OS 10.2+, Linux 7+
Browsers supported	Internet Explorer 5.0, Netscape 4.7	Internet Explorer 5.0, Netscape 6.0, Mozilla Firefox 1.0	Internet Explorer 4.0, Netscape 4.0, Mozilla Firefox 1.4, Safari 1.1, Opera 7.0	Internet Explorer 6.0, Netscape 7.2, Mozilla Firefox 1.4, Safari 1.2	Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher	Internet Explorer 5.0, Netscape 4.7, Safari 1.1, Mozilla Firefox 1.4
Record and playback capabilities	no	no	yes	yes	no	yes
Whiteboard	no	no	yes	yes	yes	yes
VoIP	yes	no	yes	one-way only	no	yes
Video	yes	no	yes	no	yes	yes
Voice conferencing	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Polling	no	no	yes	yes	no	yes

Story URL: http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/0,1000000193,39190992,00.htm