News - Conference Callings.net

Which Web-Conferencing Solution Is Right for Your Company?

Friday, May 2, 2008

Sometimes conference calling, email and chat aren't enough to get your point across to people in far-flung locations. You might need, for instance, to share documents and other visual materials as if you were in the same room. Unless everyone has time to get on a plane, the only answer in such cases is Web conferencing. A number of solutions are available, ranging from hosted services to software-based premises systems to hybrids. Choosing the right solution is one of the more complex technology decisions an enterprise has to make.

What Web Conferencing Can Do

Web-conferencing systems offer an enormous range of capabilities. Letting participants share documents with each other online is just the start. Users can often share whiteboards, see the activity on each other's computer desktops and even take control of each other's mouse and keyboard. They can use communication methods such as text chat, voice conferencing and video, preferably integrated to allow seamless transition from one to another. They can poll other users and break off for private sessions via any or all of the methods. They can also record, annotate and play back sessions.

Similarly, companies can use Web conferencing for a broad variety of activities. Holding online meetings is the most obvious. But education is also a major use, whether it involves instruction of in-house staff or providing information and training for external audiences such as customers and distributors. Web conferencing can also be ideal for product announcements, shareholder meetings and investor presentations.
What You Need to Consider

Before deciding on a solution, though, it's necessary to ask a number of questions to determine how Web-conferencing products differ from one another. A key question is whether a product is hosted or premises-based. According to Frost & Sullivan Roopam Jain, hosted or on-demand services currently account for 85 percent of Web-conferencing revenues.

A further distinction among premises solutions is whether they come complete with hardware, or are software installations that run on enterprises' existing servers. Another question is which, and how many, operating systems the solutions run on. And a distinction that has recently gained importance is whether they require client software running on participants' computers, or use Adobe Flash Player technology that frees them from that requirement.

The integration of voice is yet another major consideration. Solutions that lack it may require you to do all your talking through your regular phone on a separate call bridge, though they may offer the bridge as a free adjunct to their service. Others may include VoIP as an integrated part of the package, which can make switching from one method of communication to another easier. In some circumstances, the ability to record parts or all of sessions can be crucial. For instance, many companies in the financial and legal fields are subject to compliance rules that require them to record virtually every communication they have with or about clients.

News Source : http://www.voip-news.com/