Improved technology, the dramatic growth in penetration of high bandwidth via cable modem and DSL connection and the rapidly declining cost of online communication have all helped make web conferencing a viable option for today’s small-to-medium sized business.
Web conferencing is nothing more than a productivity tool. In addition to saving money and allowing a company to use its employees’ time more effectively, it also improves communication, both internal and external. That’s why the sales and marketing people have been its most ardent supporters. Moreover it expands a company’s business beyond geographical territory. Plus more importantly, it’s a great tool for post-sales support, particularly for customer training.
Profiling the Players
As is to be expected, web conferencing providers are flooding the marketplace. In this issue we look at three web conferencing providers to help provide perspective for the average small-to-medium sized buyer– the industry leader, an up-and-comer and a niche player.
- WebEx Communications (www.webex.com): They’re the industry biggy with a 64% share of market, 7,500 customers and over a million online hosts or subscribers. As expected, their customer base is a gallery of the well-known including, Oracle, MasterCard, Motorola, and Microsoft. Their partnership commitments with providers such as SAP, Intuit and AT&T would indicate that WebEx will most likely be to web conferencing what Gillette is to shaving. As with most providers in the field, WebEx does not require companies to install any software of purchase any hardware. Subscriptions (for a small user base) run an industry average of $100 per month for unlimited use. The technology supports a variety of complex media including streamed video, CAD and 3D animation. Data is never stored on the WebEx network; it simply passes through. WebEx now offers a recently- introduced Events Center, targeted primarily at marketers, which permits an online event for anywhere from 20 to 2000 participants, obviously an interesting online platform for press conferences and new product launches.
- Netspoke (www.netspoke.com): This four year old company, servicing 2,200 customers and 22,000 subscribers, operates on an ASP model and charges its customers either by the minute or on the traditional subscription basis ($125 per user per month). As with its competitors, Netspoke does not require any hardware or software installation and will even run off 56K modems, albeit slowly. The technology is firewall-friendly, which means there is no need to involve the IT department in solving cumbersome access problems. Netspoke’s D’Entrement estimates that the average organization uses webcasting for a minimum of an hour a week for meetings and two hours a week for sales-related activity. Say D’Entrement, “Our customers conduct sales and marketing webinars involving group product demonstrations. We also see a lot of small group collaboration, where documents, data, charts, etc., are reviewed.” While Netspoke technology will allow up to 1,000 participants to conference together, the average is in the 5-7 participant range.
- LBC Conferencing (www.lbcconferencing.com): Operating on a Raindance (second largest player after WebEx) platform, LBC caters primarily to the legal and medical communities with an integrated phone and web conferencing product. As with its larger brethren, LBC sells its product by the minute in addition to offering the traditional unlimited use monthly subscriber option. President and CEO, Doug Mondo, boasts of 50,000 conferences a week on the LBC network but also emphasizes the after-the-fact benefit of the technology, “You can record an event and subsequently make it available as a streaming file for education and training purposes. It can even become an e-commerce event for which subscribers pay to view.”
Web conferencing and online collaboration will never replace the face-to-face meeting, but it’s an effective way to fill the gaps. Given that most of the leading providers offer tried and proven technology at equivalent price points, the prospective buyer for web conferencing services needs to pursue the fundamentals–a quality product with flawless 24/7 customer service support and so easy to use that even the harried executive can adopt the technology with a minimal learning curve and with an ease and speed that one normally associates with the ATM or e-mail.
