SightSpeed (News - Alert), a provider of Internet video communications, today announced a significant breakthrough in business video conferencing – simultaneous nine (9)-way video conferencing and text chat.
According to SightSpeed, its business video conferencing service is the first allowing small- and medium-sized businesses this kind of significantly extended utility within a high-quality, fully portable solution.
The enhanced functionality to nine-way video conferencing highlights the next edition of SightSpeed Business, a full-featured, affordable suite of collaboration and productivity tools which can be used anywhere in the world – even portably -- that was introduced with high acclaim in the last quarter of 2007.
SightSpeed Business was also updated with new audio codecs, which mean enhanced wideband audio for conferences, array mics and improved performance for Windows Vista users.
While other providers of business-grade, multi-party video conferencing require dedicated, high-capacity bandwidth – often T1
and above – or a co-located server to make their systems work, SightSpeed Business only requires a consumer broadband.
Users of SightSpeed Business, with or without built-in or plug-in Webcams and microphones on their laptops or desktops, can join in nine-way conferences.
“Simultaneous nine-way video conferencing is an exciting development for us and for the industry,” said Eric Quanstrom, SightSpeed vice president of marketing. “It’s something our early users asked for and we listened. With this greater number of simultaneous participants we’re also further differentiating SightSpeed Business from other providers that are still trying to catch up to our quality, our ease of use and our features.
“SightSpeed Business is both high-quality and simply functional over the public Internet at whatever broadband speeds users have at their disposal, whether they’re working from homes or remote offices or traveling,” added Quanstrom. “For the company looking to stay face-to-face, with employees, clients or contractors – wherever they are – there really is no better solution.”
Retailing for only $19.95 per user per month, SightSpeed Business users can also receive savings incentives based on full-year and multi-party licenses. Like all SightSpeed services, the business capabilities are fully cross-platform, meaning SightSpeed Business users can communicate across Windows or Mac platforms via the global SightSpeed network.
“The price and ease of use of SightSpeed’s new nine-way capability will enable users – especially small businesses – to hold larger multi-location calls, at no increase in their costs or complexity,” said Elliot Gold, president of TeleSpan Publishing Corporation. “For instance, this breakthrough addresses the very real need of the road warrior market, made up of people who can’t afford to miss large group videoconferences.”
The new nine-way capabilities enrich the value of several standard features of SightSpeed Business, including:
Video-on-Top – Any SightSpeed conference allows participants the ability to put the video screen on top of or adjacent to other files, thus multitasking and using screen real estate effectively.
The Administrative Console, which provides the ability to add, change and manage users centrally.
Recording video/audio of conferences – For file-keeping, subsequent sharing with non-participants or Webinars, conference proceedings may be recorded with one click. Conferences can be recorded in multiple formats for easy sharing—a far superior option to renting a costly conferencing bridge.
File sharing – Users can share and discuss any document or file, seeing it and all participants at the same time.
Multi-party text chat – During nine-way conference calls, all participants have a continuous chat channel for asking questions, embellishing points or multi-tasking.
Other features of SightSpeed Business include:
· Unlimited video calling and text chat
· Video e-mail – Users may record video messages up to five minutes long and send them to any e-mail inbox; works with all major e-mail software, plus unlimited storage of video e-mail.
· Custom Click-to-Call links – Users may embed click-to-call buttons on their Web pages or e-mail signatures to give other SightSpeed users the ability to start video, voice or chat sessions instantly.
· Unlimited PC-to-PC voice calling for free
· Voice calling to phone numbers worldwide at prices typically lower than standard long-distance. For example, average rates within the United States are 2 cents per minute.
· New users get 500 free calling minutes in the U.S. or Canada.
· Detailed call history
· Multi-user licensing
· One-click invitations to clients or colleagues to join conference calls
Michelle Robart is a Contributing Editor at TMCnet. To read more of her articles please visit her columnist page.
Transmission Level 1 (T1) | X |
A T-1 is connected between a Class 5 Central Office and Customer Premise Equipment switching system such as a PBX or ACD or data communications system such as a router, Frame Relay Access Device, etc....more |