Web Conferencing Blog

In June we included a brief survey on webconferencing-test.com asking for the reasons visitors come to our site, how they got there and if they got what they expected. We have gotten quite a number of responses – thank you all! – and would like to present what our visitors had to say.

Looking at the reasons visitors came to our site revealed the following:

Most visitors (31%) were on the hunt for generic information about web conferencing to get familiar with the technology and different ways of online collaboration. 18% were on the verge of purchasing a solution and checked our site to confirm their buying decision. And we were happy to see that 8% of the visitors were current users of a web conferencing solution seeking tips and tricks on using the software in question. In addition, 21% chose our site to begin their search for a web conferencing solution and 9% were looking for news on the online collaboration market. The remaining 13% had their own reason to visit our site…

Of course we got many suggestions for tools to include in our tests, such as ICU Live! from ICU Global. We always appreciate such hints since the market has expanded greatly and it is impossible to keep track of all online collaboration software. The feedback we got relating to this issue, i.e. that our overview is not complete is correct. But some tools don’t appear on our list for the following reasons:

• Target group: If an online meeting tool vendor requires you to make changes to your IT infrastructure the tool is very likely not for our focus group – small to medium sized businesses or the self-employed – who are best of with ready-to-use solutions.
• Popularity: Finding a tool that works for you is great. But if you are one of the 10 total users it just may not have an appeal for a broader audience and we need to prioritize our resources when it comes to testing.
• Performance: Some tools are simply bad. Full stop. No need to include them in our ranking.

Another bit of feedback was that our pricing info was not detailed enough and that we should incorporate pricing models for more usage scenarios on our site. Availability of pricing information is an important factor for us as we also state in our test approach. That being said there is no way for us to depict all the different usage scenarios that might come into play for the various customers. What we depict is the overall cost model we find on the vendors’ websites and if you have special requirements you will be better of contacting the vendor of your choice directly.

Thanks again to all participants for the helpful feedback. We will continue to try and state all the information on online collaboration tools you might need and appreciate your feedback should we have missed anything.

Many companies currently still use NetMeeting. However, the tool’s shortcomings make it very inconvenient for continued usage which is why those companies are now on the lookout for an alternative web conferencing solution.

Incompatibility with Microsoft Office 2010 is only the last of issues that have made usage of NetMeeting quite tedious. If an online collaboration tool does not allow you to demonstrate a simple PowerPoint presentation there is something seriously wrong.

The whole issue started a while back when Microsoft decided to no longer support NetMeeting with the release of Windows Vista – NetMeeting had been a part of the Windows OS since Windows 95. After Vista came out companies using NetMeeting found workarounds to keep the tool running but now even those solutions will no longer work.

Why did NetMeeting become so popular in the first place one might ask. Well… it was there. Simple as that. Since it was integrated in Microsoft’s OS companies made use of it for their internal online collaboration even though the tool never really was good. So the end of life offers a twofold opportunity for current NetMeeting users:

• Companies can select an online meeting solution that enables collaboration to go beyond the firewall and allows for meetings with external participants without compromising security.
• Prospective tools can be evaluated for the exact functionalities needed to guarantee ease-of-use.

Online collaboration tools come in many colors and it is essential to look at the basics before purchasing a specific solution. Would a unified communication solution such as Lync be best or rather a standalone solution such as LiveMeeting? And then of course there is the question of hosted vs. on-premise.

With its demise NetMeeting poses some serious challenges to the companies that use it. On our site you can read about the different approaches the vendors of web conferencing solutions take.

You know this feeling: You are sitting somewhere and your eyes wander back to one and the same person and all of a sudden you realize ‘hey, he looks exactly like …’. Well, we had that exact same feeling when we tested ClickMeeting. We were checking out the new video functionality and all of a sudden we realized ‘hey, this looks exactly like Adobe Connect’!

Well it sure does. ClickMeeting is pretty much an exact copy of Adobe Connect 8. And ClickMeeting is a good copy, too. One of our testers found it a bit complex but really the functionalities offered can be arranged on the screen nicely to make sure participants are not left confused by the various little screens you can use. The new video functionality worked really well, too. The single webcams were resizable and video quality was also good.

But there is a reason why ClickMeeting ranks lower than Adobe Connect 8. Unlike with Adobe Connect 8 there is no Outlook integration for ClickMeeting hosts. The missing of marking tools in screen sharing mode also makes you aware that ClickMeeting currently doesn’t offer what online meeting participants should be able to take for granted. Therefore we cannot rank the tool higher than number 9.

Cisco, RHUB and Microsoft – the web conferencing vendors ranked numbers three through five – will have to each step down a rank. BeamYourScreen, formerly ranked number seven, is now available for download in version 4 and brings many enhancements. Just as with the release of version 3 last year, when the tool climbed from rank 18 to 6, the developers once again have done a great job in actually improving the software.

Version 4 of BeamYourScreen comes in an all new layout which is nice and lean and makes for intuitive usage. Users can also adapt the range of functionalities for every single meeting. What we weren’t too exited about is the minimum 12 month contract duration. There are other small disadvantages, too but overall the web conferencing solution has been greatly improved and thus only stops short of knocking Citrix GoToMeeting and Adobe Connect 8 from numbers one and two.

If you decide to try out the new version of BeamYourScreen let us know what you think of it and post your experiences.

Citrix, Adobe and Cisco: Three of the biggest online meeting solutions vendors have now integrated video functionality into their solutions. We checked them out and here is what we found:

All three tools offer not only video but rather HD video. And yes, the quality is very impressive. Citrix GoToMeeting limits the number of webcam participants to 6 unlike Cisco WebEx which allows up to 500 participants or Adobe Connect 8 where you have no restrictions at all. But as always bigger isn’t necessarily better. One downside of a video conference with let us say 20 participants is that you will need a lot of bandwidth to really get that HD quality. And with every new participant that joins the webcams on display just get smaller and smaller. Now we haven’t tried it with 20 participants ourselves but it probably is hard to see who is actually speaking.

Next to the number of possible participants the ease of integrating video into a conference was another important item on our list. All three tools did well when it comes to basic integration and Adobe and Citrix lead the way when it comes to flexibility. Users can resize the webcams on display or place them wherever it is most convenient on their screens.

A nice touch was linking the videos to VoIP, which GoToMeeting and WebEx offer. What does that mean? Well, the webcam of the current speaker is highlighted (Citrix) or centered (WebEx). The centering can give you a headache, though. Just imagine a discussion between 10 participants with frequently changing speakers…

Overall, Citrix really did the best job of integrating HD video. The new functionality is lean and easy to use. It blends into the overall tool very well and covers the scenarios ‘video-only’ and ‘video combined with screen sharing’ best.

But Adobe and Cisco don’t trail by far so if you are used to meeting online with one of the two you are very likely to be satisfied with the video conferencing option either one offers.

BeamYourScreen version 4 went live today as planned. However, we haven’t updated our ranking yet. We have tested the tool and formed our verdict but when we double checked the also new website today we noticed that there currently is no pricing info on display. We contacted BeamYourScreen and were told that the information will be included on the site shortly.

Since we regard openly available pricing information on vendors’ websites as a crucial point in our evaluations we will wait with updating our ranking until it is fully displayed on the BeamYourScreen site.

Along with other users we have been doing some beta testing of BeamYourScreen’s new version 4, which will be released tomorrow. You will find the software for download on BeamYourScreen’s then also new website.

Our tests have yielded results that will have an impact on our ranking of web conferencing solutions. As soon as the new version is out and running we will update the ranking accordingly.

Video has been in use privately for quite some time but has been ridiculously slow in regards of becoming really useful for business online collaboration. Now that an increasing number of employees who need to attend or host online meetings either have a mobile computing device with a built-in camera or an external webcam plugged in, web conferencing vendors feel the time has come to integrate video into their solutions. And since internet connections are getting faster and faster why not go to HD while they are at it?

Now where does this leave us and our ranking of online meeting tools? Well, first of all there will be no shift of focus. We will not rank a tool higher just because it makes it possible for you to wave into a camera. The focus will remain on functionalities that enable and/or enhance online collaboration. Desktop screen sharing and the document- and information-centric joint working with applications really is the key to all online collaboration technologies.

So far we had only figured in video at the margin, giving a tool a minor increase in overall score if it enabled video. But this yes/no logic really does not reflect this specific functionality well enough anymore. If a vendor offers video in his software we want to know the following:

• Can you scale the videos? It is really annoying if you have huge heads staring at you while you try to read text on a presentation that is displayed in a corner of the screen. Users should be able to move cameras and re-size them to their liking.
• How does a tool handle the enormous amount of data being streamed? The software must be backed up by a powerful server infrastructure that can handle all data upstreams and downstreams. Regardless of the number of participants or the single participants’ internet connection the tool must deliver video without compromising the overall quality of the online meeting.
• Are voice and video connected? If two or three people are in a conference it is fairly easy to identify the speaker. But if you have six participants in a conference and are discussing a document that is being displayed you do not want to be stuck having to check whose lips are moving. So the current speaker should be highlighted by the tool.
• Are voice and video not only connected but in sync? You don’t want to be talking and see that on the screen your lips are moving a second later than when you are actually forming the words.

We will consider these options – and potentially more we might consider useful – in our future tests and make sure that video has a greater influence on overall score than it currently has. Video can really enhance an online meeting if it is integrated into the software wisely. Video functionality must seamlessly fit into the tool and really offer the users an additional advantage. It is all about user friendliness and if video doesn’t enhance the usability of a web conferencing solution it shouldn’t be integrated in the first place.

We at Online Meeting Tools Review have treated video conferencing as a side aspect so far. But there currently is a trend in the online collaboration market to include high quality video into well structured web conferencing tools, opening up many new possibilities for holding online meetings.

Until recently video was basically being used in businesses for the following two scenarios:

Scenario 1: Many larger companies had proprietary high-end conferencing systems installed in dedicated meeting rooms, based on the technology provided by Cisco, Polycom, Tandberg and the likes. These served as a somewhat expensive toy in C-Level meetings spread over various locations and even continents.

Scenario 2: Teams spread over different locations make use of low-end solutions. There are basically two ways for teams to collaborate using video conferencing technology:

1. Freeware such as Skype and now also Google+ hangouts are an easy way to connect. The only requirement is that all participants need to have an account for the respective platform before they can start a video conference. With Skype users get some web conferencing functionalities as the tool allows e.g. screen sharing. However, many organizations prohibit users from using tools like Skype, due to security concerns.
2. Apple and Microsoft make it possible: Teams can also collaborate via tools that are tied to the respective OS or vendor-based server technologies, such as Apple’s iChat and Microsoft’s Lync and OCS (Office Communication Server). These do work pretty well for video conferencing, however typically only within the organization’s firewall.

Another general restriction to video conferencing used to be the relatively low number of users with webcams. This is becoming less of an issue due to huge increases in mobile devices which usually feature a built-in webcam of some sorts and of course cheap external devices that can be used via plug and play. Privately these have been used for quite some time now and web conferencing vendors are now feeling conditions have changed sufficiently for them to integrate video into their solutions and actually offer customers additional value by doing so.

So with business users having their webcams in place, strong enough internet connections to actually allow HD (High Definition) video streaming it seems that conditions are near perfect for web conferencing vendors to integrate video into their tools. We will give you our take on this trend shortly and we’ll let you know how we will be figuring video functionality into our overall ranking.

Are you currently using a video conferencing solution on a regular basis for business purposes? If so just leave a comment and let us know what solution you are using and how that is working out for you.

As Deutsche Welle reports, German air traffic controllers are likely to go on a six-hour strike beginning Tuesday at 6 a.m. if it is not called off at the last second.

This strike would cause quite some chaos for all those currently on vacation and of course those who need to travel on business. Just as last year – when that Icelandic volcano that is impossible to pronounce correctly offset travel throughout Europe – business travellers can make the best of their situation and take their meetings online if they cannot make it to their destination.

With a laptop entire presentations can be held and those travelling light with either a tablet or their smart phone with them can at least attend meetings and follow what others are presenting. Check out our ranking of online collaboration tools that will enable business travellers to hold or attend a meeting even if they are stuck at an airport or decide not to travel at all.