SightSpeed (News - Alert) Inc., a provider of Internet video chat and conferencing, is announcing that its video and voice communications services are now available on “netbook” PCs – the new mini-notebook category.
With its announcement, SightSpeed achieves a first by becoming the only multi-party video and voice communications service to be fully cross-platform across all three major operating systems – Windows, Mac and Linux.
SightSpeed’s new Linux version is available now as the “Dell (News - Alert) Video Chat powered by SightSpeed” application that comes pre-installed on the Linux build of Dell’s newly-launched Inspiron Mini 9 device.
“The fact that Linux makes smaller demands on screen real estate has given us at SightSpeed new flexibility to design extremely intuitive and compelling controls for video calling – and worldwide telephone calling – across these new smaller form factors,” CEO Peter Csathy (News - Alert) says. “With a primary thrust of this new smaller category of netbooks being on-the-go communications, SightSpeed is paving the way for easy, high-quality, face-to-face communications from any broadband connection. It’s all about carrying your friends and colleagues with you, wherever you go around the world.”
Dell Video Chat comes with four-way multi-party calling out of the box, as well as unlimited video mail storage and as much as three-minute recording per mail – features that typically come only with the SightSpeed PLUS plan, at $9.95 per month. It is also optimized for the netbook platform.
“We know the specifications of the camera, speakers and microphones that are going into these new netbooks, and so we’ve optimized the factory version to take full advantage of them,” Csathy says. “As a result, SightSpeed’s best-in-class video and voice services have never been easier to use – the user is up, running and can make video and voice calls in less than 30 seconds.”
SightSpeed provides a groundbreaking portfolio of Internet video communications services, based on patented human perception-based technology coming out of 10 years of R&D at Cornell University.
Its services include SightSpeed Free, the “gold standard” in Internet-based video chat for consumers; SightSpeed PLUS, a service with more features, including four-way simultaneous video chat and longer video e-mails; SightSpeed Light, a MySpace (News - Alert) and hi5 widget that captures and creates video messages as posts, and SightSpeed Business, a full-featured suite of collaboration and productivity tools with simultaneous nine-way video/voice/text conferencing starting at $19.95 per month.
Founded in 2001 and based in Berkeley, Calif., SightSpeed is a privately-held company funded by The Roda Group, best known for launching Ask Jeeves and PolyServe. For more information visit SightSpeed online at www.sightspeed.com.
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Eve Sullivan is a contributing editor for TMCnet, covering news in the IP communications, call center and customer relationship management industries. To read more of Eve's articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by Eve Sullivan