Long past are the days when people had to be in the same physical room to have a meeting and conversations. Conference phone calls have been standard affair in the business world for decades, but with high speed Internet playing an integral roll in today’s world, video conferencing is far and away starting to take precedence.
The ability to see whom you are communicating can often seal a deal, and it’s generally easier to have a conversation with them as well. This roundup features software solutions to enable and empower you to fill your video conferencing needs.
Adobe’s Acrobat Connect is a flash based, Windows and Mac platform fully featured solution. It also integrates screen sharing, chat and whiteboards to easily convey your message. The one limitation is that only 15 people can connect at a time. Pricing starts at $39 per month or $395 for an annual license with unlimited meetings and no connection limitations on time.
Adobe’s Acrobat Connect Pro is the fully featured version of Connect, but geared towards the education and larger scaled businesses, with the ability to fully host seminars and no limitations on connections.
DimDim is still in Beta phase but offers some unique solutions on a varied scale. At the core is a flash based and available in four variations, from free to education based classroom editions. At this point, video is still listed as coming soon on their site, but as Beta rolls through, it should be on shortly, 2-way video is currently available, and because DimDim is Flash based, it works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
- Free is just that, free to use, limited to 20 people.
- Pro will handle up to 50 connections and costs $19 / month
- Enterprise will handle 1,000 attendees
- Virtual Classroom allows 10 teachers to have 50 connections and is priced at $2199 annually.
Microsoft’s Office Live Meeting is Java based, but requires specific browsers for different operating systems to work properly. Mac users for example must use Safari. It will handle up to 15 attendees and offers varied, if not confusing pricing which starts at $4.58 per user per month.
MegaMeeting has one set of products, conferencing software. They offer a varied level of options from personal and enterprise, all the way through solutions branded to your company. Pricing ranges from $45 / month through $16,995 annually, depending on what your needs are. Their software is fully compatible with Windows and Mac; they have a huge MegaWiki of information and also offer 24/7 tech support should you run into problems. One interesting thing they also offer is hardware, to ensure the best possible connections.
iVisit offers mobile and desktop solutions for video conferencing. This unique option allows smart phone users with data plans the ability to take part in video conferences, as well as desktop users. The software is free for one-to-one use, $4.95 / month for multiple connections. It’s cross platform for Windows and Mac and runs on a slew of phones, which need to have either 3g web access or be near a wifi hotspot.
Skype has been leading the phone and video revolution for a while now over the Internet, however it is limited to one on one still. The interesting offering from Skype is that you don’t need a computer to utilize their video chat; you can purchase a videophone to do this. At the core, Skype is free, so it’s a great option to checkout if one on one is needed.
iChat has been a standard application in the Macintosh operating system for years. Apple has also incorporated a small web cam into all of their notebooks and iMac computers for the last few years to help utilize the video chat function better. At the core, this is an instant messaging client, but does work with up to 4 people connected to it. System requirements are osX 10.5 for everyone though, so it is somewhat limited.
Google’s Gmail voice and video chat is another free option, geared towards one on one chatting, but is cross platform for Windows and Mac and only requires a web browser, microphone and web cam to work, along with a Gmail account. This is also the only video conferencing software that is currently fully supported in Google’s Chrome browser.
As business and personal needs shift, video conferencing will start to become more of an integral roll in how we live our lives. These nine solutions should fill just about any need from family members who wish to say hello in different parts of the country to global fortune 500 companies who need to discuss and share ideas without the incurred cost of flying everyone to a centralized location. Broadband Internet and 3G cell phone technology has made this once dream into a reality.
Do you have a favorite video conferencing solution?
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