Selecting Web Conferencing VendorsFirst and foremost, we must accept the fact that web conferencing has come a long way in helping businesses in their communications and basic planning of services and functions. Since businesses are going multinational, the need for web conferencing technology is much more significantly felt. Web conferencing allows different people within a business to communicate with each other over a live portal of their own. They can see and talk with each other, but that is not all. They can share texts, files and media such as audio and video clips to each other. They can even co-browse websites, which becomes a very important feature when businesses are planning their own website setups. These are the features that set web conferencing solutions apart from simple chat windows. Chats are usually one-on-one services, while web conferencing is a very wide approach to communication. However, businesses must make certain that the web conferencing provider they are zeroing in on will be able to deliver the goods. Firstly, the features that are provided must be checked out completely, and it must be seen whether everything that the business wants for furthering its activities will be provided by the web conferencing provider. Check out whether messages will be passed on through an interactive whiteboard, or there will be simple text messaging option available for the communication. Is there a possibility of using the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), or is there a possibility of carrying on a conversation with a normal telephone if required? Some of the web conferencing vendors will also allow several people to poll and they will calculate the poll results. Compare the features of several web conferencing vendors and then think about selecting one from them. It is also better to settle with specialized web conferencing vendors than to use the services of big providers such as Microsoft and IBM. Microsoft has its Online Live Meeting (taken over from Placeware). The problem with these big players is that their web conferencing solutions are mostly parts of a grand package that also provides several other things. Here, you may not be able to customize things according to your wishes since their platforms are already set. Instead, if you select some of the smaller web conferencing services, you might have a bit of leeway in deciding the final product you will get. But at the same time, you must be very careful at the security measures you will get with single web conferencing services. This becomes very important since you will be probably sharing sensitive files and other kinds of information and even your voice and text messages over the conference. It is better to check out some previous references on the web conferencing services, and to make sure that they have their securities in place. Check whether they have SSL encryption for you, and probe into what kinds of solutions they will be placing behind their firewalls to prevent hackers and other undesirable Internet elements from entering into your web conferencing world. Finally, you must check out how they are going to charge you. Most of them will allow you to pay with your business credit card, but there will be different parameters on which the payments will be decided. Some of them will make their bills on the basis of the total time the conference was active, while some others may consider the total number of users in the conference. It is better to make these things clear at the outset so that there are no misunderstandings later on. |