Strengthen from being acquired by networking leader Cisco fairly recently WebEx has become the gold standard for providing online meeting services. They offer solutions for video conferencing, web conferencing, desktop support, online sales, and remote PC control for a month based fee. This entry is going to focus in on the individial/small business solution that WebEx dubbed 'MeetMeNow'.
"Perfect for individual business professionals that need an affordable and simple online meeting solution. Hold unlimited meetings with up to 10 attendees, share your desktop, grant control, annotate, chat and more - all from the comfort of your desktop, Outlook, or IM."
I am a paying WebEx MeetMeNow customer and I do have to say overall I am impressed with the product. Below are a few pros and cons I found when it comes to meeting online and sharing the desktop to look at issues and/or powerpoint slides.
Pros: The interface of the website itself is great. When it comes to online meetings they did an excellent job of including everything you can ask for. MeetMeNow Integrates with AIM Pro. This was a very big plus. Within a few clicks you can invite from inside a chat window, start the meeting, and pass control if needed. We use it at Tech Guru Solutions for small businesses to do meetings with branches or vendors. Saves travel time and there are many benefits. The speed in which a desktop is shared between two people was decent. Inviting via email is very easy as well. You have the flexibility to have a meeting with anyone on the Internet and having 5-10-20 people doesn't cripple the meeting. Meeting via the Internet is the most effiecent way to go when multiple sites, vendors, and teleworkers are concerned.
Cons: At 49.99 a month it is not really worth it for an individual in my opinion unless you do remote support. If you use it to have meetings with employees who work remotely or hold a lot of online meetings weekly then it would make sense. The packages also climb really high if you chose ones like the IT support package (which you do not need, please send me an email if you think you do) Connecting up first time users takes a bit of time. Anywhere from 3 to 7 minutes even if they have broadband. Once they have the software installed it only takes a few minutes to get into a meeting any times after.
For those of you who don't want to spend any money...yet you want to be able to share your desktop, spreadsheet, or powerpoint with another co worker inside of the company you can with a free build in tool called Windows NetMeeting (start-->run-->type conf hit enter). This works internally just fine but bogs down if more then 2-3 people join together at once.
Click for Free WebEx Trial to see for yourself
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Overall its all win with video conferencing on the ground…We have Web Conferencing software…and its too a great alternative for small business along with Cisco. A user could set up a skype and conferencing session to get around the audio and video sessions simultaneously. Ok, they are not integrated but not bad at all for free or a low monthly - especially when you compare it to the cost of a Webex and microsoft implementations.
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