
			Types

Types of Web Conferencing Systems

Two types of Web conferencing and live presentations systems are available on the market today:

1) "Enterprise" Web Conferencing Systems

2) Web Conferencing Systems

The so-called "enterprise conferencing systems" market provides an ample worldwide marketplace to big-name companies like Microsoft, IBM/Lotus, HP, Polycom, HorizonLive, Raindance and many others. Most of these companies are based in the US and target exclusively large organizations that want to achieve significant cost-savings by reducing travel and meeting costs.

Nonetheless most people and the official press focus exclusively on tools like Placeware (http://www.placeware.com, recently bought by Microsoft), WebEx (http://www.webex.com) and Centra (http://www.centra.com), a new, alternative blooming industry of Web conferencing and online live presentation tools is gradually emerging, and its unique differentiating factor is its target group: the individual, rather than the corporation.

This new breed of Web conferencing tools challenges many of the features and facilities of the large enterprise systems, and provides reliable access to effective communication technologies for a fraction (1/10 or less) of the cost. The large majority of these new alternative tools (the focus of this report) has become available to end-users only very recently (within the last 18 months). These alternative tools are mostly targeted at small companies and individual professionals. As such this group of tools is referenced as "SOHO" (Small office - Home office), and it is quite evident that the key traits of these tools are designed and promoted with the individual end-user in mind.

To get a better understanding of the differences between these two groups of Web conferencing tools, here is a short summary outlining in more detail peculiarities, pros and cons of both groups.

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