Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 29 June 2008 20:02
Opinion and Analysis
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It’s been a big year for Citrix. Now Citrix is upping the ante with a new version of
GoToMeeting 4.0 that should shake up the web meeting and phone
conferencing market thanks to new features and added VoIP.
First, let’s do a quick wrap on just some of the Citrix developments this year.
There’s been activity on the virtualisation front with Xen Server and Xen Desktop, a demonstration of a Windows XP desktop being remotely accessed on an iPhone with multi-touch zoom in and out capabilities, the success of the GoToAssist Express beta, an award from Microsoft, an expansion of the R&D footprint in India and now the imminent release of GoToMeeting 4.0.
GoToWebinar is being updated too, but we’ll start with GoToMeeting, of which GoToWebinar is a version for significantly more simultaneous attendees.
So, what is GoToMeeting? Well,
according to Citrix’s own description, it’s a “Web conferencing tool that allows you to meet online rather than in a conference room.”
Given the rising cost of petrol, airfares and the inconvenience of travel, it’s a simple way to let someone else (or up to 15 people) see a presentation you’re giving from your own computer on their own screen, or to view any application on your computer.
Currently, for both parties to talk and hear each other, so you can give your presentation or conduct a meeting with the other person, you need to ring a freecall number to connect all the meeting participants together, which GoToMeeting provides.
The big benefit of GoToMeeting over other solutions has always been the fact it charges a flat fee for use of the service, as opposed to traditional conferencing solutions which can charge a high per minute usage fee.
What’s changing in GoToMeeting 4.0 is the addition of VoIP and the introduction of local PSTN numbers.
In a demonstration conducted by Citrix representatives of the new version, the entire meeting was conducted over the Internet, and we spoke using VoIP (though a USB microphone/headset), which worked very well for the entire meeting.
It has to be said that there were occasional minor audio glitches, but it was still the beta version we were using, and it was also explained to me that the meeting was being conducted from the PR agency Citrix uses which had its bandwidth under heavy load by an office full of people.
So it was actually a pretty good demonstration of Citrix's bandwidth management that it did ultimately work very well in conjuction with the web meeting we were conducting to demonstrate GoToMeeting 4.0's features.
In any case, Citrix say they’ve worked hard to make it a scalable high quality audio experience for users, and existing and new GoToMeeting 4.0 users will find out for themselves what they think of the new VoIP addition.
Citrix are calling it a “Total Audio Service” with a cost of US $49 per month for up to 15 people in a meeting, or a corporate version at $59 per month with up to 25 people in a meeting.
The ability to have people call in via a local PSTN number will also be included in the monthly cost, backhauling the traffic with VoIP for a seamless solution, while organisers can also record to entire meeting to their computers to watch and listen to later if desired.
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