The Conference Group (News - Alert), a leading provider of audio, Web and videoconferencing services, has reportedly introduced a 1,000-seat user license for it s ReadyShow Web conferencing service with a suggested retail price of $99 per month.

That means a company could have up to 1,000 participants on a Web conference every day for a flat fee of $99 per month. 

Conference hosts will enjoy all that ReadyShow Web has to offer, including slide pushing, application sharing, chatting, polling and even video streaming of the host.

Audio bridging charges are additional and options range from reservationless access to dedicated full-time operator assisted service, depending on the size of the event and level of support desired.

 

The Conference Group claims that under this new plan companies can save as much as $3,500 a month, compared to the regular $0.15 per minute plan, if they conduct one weekly, 60 minute, 100-participant conference.

The ReadyShow service is fully Web-based, which means users can access the service from any computer with a high speed connection. There is no software client to download. The on-demand service is ideal for companies that frequently need to hold unscheduled or ad hoc Web conferences. The service is offered on both a subscription and per-minute model.

ReadyShow supports Microsoft (News - Alert) PowerPoint, Excel and Word documents, as well as Adobe Acrobat PDFs, and also allows for desktop and application sharing. In addition, different participants can share presenting responsibilities. The platform’s “hand raising” feature lets participants "raise their hands" in response to a question or to get host attention – and also tallies the total number of "raised hands." The platform also allows for audience polling, where poll questions can be pushed out to audience members and the results can be displayed (tallied) after votes are cast.

Other useful features include “smart scrolling,” which allows for synchronization of a participant’s view of a document with the presenter's view; a pointer that can be used to highlight key presentation points on slides or in documents; and an annotation tool that can be used to illustrate key points in presentation with 15 different colors available. The service also includes a file transfer feature that lets a presenter transfer files to some or all participants. Of course, the service also lets all moderators, presenters and operators to chat with each other in real time. The Conference Group uses TDM bridges to ensure audio quality and reliability.

Last week The Conference Group – which sponsors the Conferencing and Web Conferencing channels on TMCnet – announced that it is waiving the fee for recording Web conferences on its ReadyShow service – an enticing offer since most providers charge extra for this. Users can record their Web conferences, with the audio and visuals synchronized, in the Flash format and then download the file immediately following the event. In addition, The Conference Group will archive the recording for up to 30 days.

The ability to record presentations and play them back later is one of the biggest advantages of Web conferencing. This allows people who couldn’t make it for the live presentation to still hear and see it – plus it enables the conference leader or other attendees share the presentation with others. It also allows conference attendees to go back and listen to the presentation again – perhaps to absorb parts they might have missed or maybe didn’t fully understand. What’s more, companies can build libraries of Web presentations which they can use as a resource for a wide variety of purposes.