Web Conferencing

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Cost: Web conferencing minutes are expensive and represent only a portion of the cost. You will also need a simultaneous audio bridge.
• Installation: Will you need to download and install a special web conferencing viewer/client like WebEx or Placeware?
• Access/Firewalls:. Corporate firewalls can interfere with your conference in the name of corporate security and can undermine your user acceptance efforts.
• Operating System: Microsoft XP offers user some great new features and significant new levels of control for the IT department. But beware! This new operating system will not let you install and run that flashy new web conferencing product if your IT department has not granted you administrative rights.
• Audio and Streaming: Real Player issues is one of those really useful applications for streaming that can only be installed by users with administrative rights.
• Web-Audio Integration: What is the level of integration between the audio and the web conference products you will be using? Some companies are good at web but do not even have an audio platform and vice versa.
• User Interface: Can you say "over- engineering"? New technology can inadvertently wrap itself in exceptionally complex or confusing control systems. Crisp, intuitive and elegant design is hard to find because the products are still evolving and standardization is not yet in place. Web conferencing is not like driving a car. Operating knowledge of a web platform is not always portable between competing web products.
• Training and Training Support: Training the user community may end up to be your biggest challenge of all ;-)
• Customer Support: When something goes wrong, (and something always goes wrong),
"who you gonna call??"
To read more go to www.thtweb.com
webconferencing 12:57 PM - [Link]
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