01 Communique Web Conferencing Solution In Beta

I'm InTouch Meeting Interface

Web meetings, a.k.a. web conferencing -- sharing a leader or moderator's display, along with presence (who's on) and other features -- can save a lot of travel time, and provide more effective interactions than just phone or even video calls.

This makes it convenient not just for group and departmental intra-company meetings, but also for sale and pre-sales discussions, training, meeting with prospective clients, inter-company collaboration, working with suppliers, customers and contractors, and other employee collaboration. (For example, some of the press briefings I do, either just with me, a source and a PR person, or briefings half a dozen or more reporters, are done using web conferencing, to demo a product or web site, or step through a PowerPoint presentation.)

But for many small-to-midsize companies shy on IT budget and time, the established web conferencing providers be daunting.

I'm In Touch Meeting, from remote access software and remote control software vendor 01 Communique, is aiming to fill that niche. I'm InTouch is currently in beta -- meaning you can try it for free -- with official release, including additional features like VoIP voice conferencing, currently targeted for later this year.

"We are looking to provide SMBs who may have hesitated in deploying an online meeting solution in the past due to fears about costs or complexity with a solution that is easy to use but still has all the features they need," says Jacob Katz, marketing executive, 01 Communique.

One major pricing difference, according to Katz, is that I'm InTouch licenses are per concurrent meeting, rather than assigned to a specific user. "With most other solutions, being able to host a meeting requires a license, typically tied to a user," says Katz. So, for example, if five people want to host web meetings on Monday, and three different people want to host web meetings on Tuesday, a company would only need five I'm InTouch licenses, not eight.

Distinguishing features of I'm InTouch Meeting, according to Katz, include -- file Transfer between moderator and attendees, and remote printing, useful for making hard copies of presentations.

Other I'm InTouch Meeting features include:

-- Desktop screen sharing with up to 15 meeting attendees

-- Control (who's the presenter) can be switched within a meeting at any time

-- Unlimited online meetings per month per subscription

-- No time limits on meetings

-- Remote printing allows meeting attendees to easily print documents from the presenter's desktop to their local printer.

-- Instant-messaging-type chat among participants

-- On-screen drawing, lets presenter indicate points of interest on the screen

-- Central web-based administration

I'm InTouch Meeting currently works only with Windows systems (either as moderator or participant). The beta is free; pricing for the official product will start at $29.95/month or $299.95/year, with volume discounts.

FURTHER READING:

-- 5 Reasons SMBs Should Adopt Videoconferencing

-- Skype Ready For Business?