The Editor’s Choice: Best of breed web conference software

We have thoroughly tested seven different web conference packages. The products were selected using the following criteria:

• We are targeting the small office and home office market, and so should the products we test. We have deliberately excluded all web conference products that do not list prices on their websites. Sorry Genesys, sorry Netviewer, sorry Meet24, but we’re too small to buy software from real (and very costly) salespeople.
• We assume that no more than ten users in an organization want to arrange online meetings. With Microsoft LiveMeeting, a ten-user solution costs at least $500 per month. Sorry, but we’re not there yet. We’re looking at programs that basically do the same thing for $52/month.
• We do not have the resources to host our own web conferencing server, so we’re looking for a hosted solution. Sorry, Lotus Sametime.
• We prefer to pay once for software. In this case we can accept a monthly license since it’s the price model everybody seems to be using. But we cannot accept per-minute charges. Sorry PowWowNow, sorry WebInterpoint.

It works its way to the top by supporting both Macintosh and Unix, by providing adequate screen handling, and by having the most attractive multi-user price model of all the products.

The products we finally selected for testing were:

• BeamYourScreen from BeamYourScreen GmbH
• eBLVD from eBLVD, Inc
• GatherPlace from GatherWorks, Inc
• GoToMeeting from Citrix Systems, Inc.
• MeetASAP from Convoq, Inc.
• MeetMeNow from WebEx Communications, Inc.
• Unyte+ from WebDialogs, Inc.

If you would like to suggest a product for inclusion in future tests, please leave a comment to this article, or use the Contact form. 

This is what we test

Here is the process flow that we use during the tests:

1. Supporting host environments
   We would have preferred to use software that runs on any platform, but none of these products do. In fact, only GatherPlace supports hosting meetings from a Macintosh. The others only run on Windows PCs.
2. Installing the host software
   Every user that is to function as a moderator or presenter needs to download the host software. In most cases, this is very simple. We were mainly worried about “real” exe-file installation requirements, since we know that you normally cannot install software on public PCs like the ones used in Internet cafés. Not that we host many meetings in coffee shops, mind you, we just thought we’d appreciate to be able to.
3. Inviting participants to a meeting
   We thought inviting the people we wanted to meet would be a simple thing with any product, but we were wrong.
4. Installing the client software
   We generally don’t know the people we meet online, and in particular we don’t know whether they use Windows, Macintosh or Unix on their computer. For us, it would feel very awkward if we could only meet with people that use Windows. Surprisingly enough, three out of seven tested programs cannot meet with Unix users, and two of them don’t even welcome the Macintosh.
5. Connecting each client to the conference
   Technically, this is one of the trickiest parts. The meeting host is just any PC on the Internet. Since it isn’t a server, it is vehemently protected by routers, hardware firewalls, software firewalls, anti-virus programs – you name it. Network clients are not supposed to be hosting things. So how do conference clients connect to the host? We don’t know, we just know that six out of seven web meeting programs managed to traverse a very complex network path. Only one didn’t.
6. Selecting what to show in the shared window
   Many of the programs we tested allows the presenter of a webinar to show just one window to the meeting participants, or the whole display. Some even allow multiple applications windows to be selected. This isn’t an important function for us, but since it is so common, we decided to test it.
7. Handling the different screen resolutions
   If the presenter of a web seminar is using a wide-screen display, do the participants also see a wide-screen image? We tested all combinations and were surprised by how often the web conferencing programs failed to handle differences in screen resolution gracefully.
8. Copying the presenter’s window to all the participants
   We were hoping that all the Internet meeting programs would be fast and produce high-quality images. Oops. Five out of seven were slooooooow even on the low quality setting, while the other two are so fast that they always operate in high-quality mode. From the participant’s end of things, the difference is very apparent.
9. Annotating the image
   We want to be able to point to various objects on the screen, to illustrate what we’re talking about. We want to be able to draw simple arrows and circles. If possible, we also want the participants to be able to draw and point while they’re asking questions.
10. Interacting with the presenter
    Often, the presenter just talks and talks, and it may be difficult for participants to “raise their hand” or by other means signal that they want something. Most of the multimedia conferencing tools we tested have chat windows and many of the can even signal a raised hand. MeetASAP can even whistle!
11. Passing control within the group
    In most cases the presenter handles the mouse and keyboard. During questions and answers sessions, it is valuable if the person asking a question can use the mouse temporarily to clarify a question. Most web conferencing products have this functionality.
12. Sharing a different desktop
    During training, it is sometimes very useful for a student to show a particular situation to other members of the group. We don’t really need this feature ourselves, but we can still appreciate products that include it.
13. Planning future meetings
    This is generally a luxury aspect for us. If you need to plan an Internet seminar, you usually want people to be able to sign up spontaneously for it. None of the products in this test provide a walk-in registration feature, but their upscale (and more expensive) siblings often do.
14. Integrating with other desktop applications
    One of the nice-to-have things with Internet conferencing software is if they integrate with instant messaging (chat) applications, personal information management applications like address book and calendar, and even voice communications software like Skype. We don’t really think this is important for the meeting, but for some people it may make it simpler to plan for the meeting and invite people to it.
15. Managing the voice conference call
    We thought the voice conference call would be expensive to set up and use. We assumed that none of the programs would be able to control the teleconference as well, and that they wouldn’t include voice-over-the-Internet-protocol (VoIP) functionality. We were wrong on all three accounts: the voice part is simple (and free), MeetMeNow has buttons that allow you to mute individual users (wow!) and several net conferencing products include specialized one-to-many VoIP features that really work well.
16. Providing international access numbers
    In the old world, calling the US from abroad was expensive. Just out of sheer habit, we went looking for non-US phone numbers. We wanted our Australian, Argentinian and Austrian users to be able to dial a local number for the teleconference. Now we can just say “forget it”. If your web conference provider has international access numbers, they are very expensive toll numbers that just aren’t worth the cost. Calling the US from other parts of the world is normally much cheaper than the cost of these telephone numbers.
17. Recording the conference
    Online meetings are very much “live”, and in our own experience we have never had the urge to go through one again, by watching a recording of it. The only reason to record a conference that we can see is to make it (sort of) available to the people that couldn’t attend it when it was scheduled. Watching a recorded meeting is far more boring than to experience it in real time, partly because there is no way for you to intervene. We still like the ability to record an online meeting and we’re reporting for each application what recording functions it provides.
18. Having a permanent meeting link on a website
    Some of the Internet conferencing programs allow you to define a fixed link that you can place on your website, in your e-mail footer or in your forum signature. Basically this allows you to accept calls from any visitor to your website and have them in your presentation or demo within seconds. If all you do are planned meetings or seminars, you won’t have much use for a fixed meeting link.
19. Possible to share a license between two or more users
    Let’s face it: most of the time you are not conducting online training or web conferences. During all that time, your online presentation license could be used by someone else. Some of the providers of virtual meeting software allow you to share a license between two or more users, as long as only one meeting takes place at a time. In an organization where many people want to host conferences, but not so often, this price model can save a lot of money.

And the winner is...

Considering all the requirements listed above, the winner in our tests is GatherPlace. This is an average achiever in all the areas we have tested. Yet, when we tally the scores, it works its way to the top by supporting both Macintosh and Unix clients (and Macintosh hosts!), by providing adequate screen handling (although it’s somewhat slow), and by having the most attractive multi-user price model of all the products we’ve tested.

Our meeting participants don’t like compromises. This is probably why they love MeetMeNow. This is absolutely the fastest product in our tests. If MeetMeNow would have supported anything but Windows, we would have given it the top spot without hesitation. It lacks some functionality but we’d sacrifice almost anything for speed. But we won’t sacrifice our Mac users, regardless of what our Windows users say.

So we gave away just a little speed but added Macintosh support, and got GoToMeeting. Accepting life’s realities, this is a very good choice as long as you never need to welcome participants that use Unix. Go To Meeting’s feature mix is almost perfect and it’s really, really fast. If you need just a few licenses it is also reasonably priced.