Virtual Office Resource

Virtual office users require a wide array of tools in order to make any headway in everyday operations. Communications tools are particularly important here, and that's why the recent move made by LogMeIn (News - Alert) represents such a great leap forward. The company recently took two of its biggest communication and collaboration products—join.me and OpenVoice—and combined these to produce what amounts to a toll-free dial-in option for collaboration efforts.

This latest move, a big help for virtual office users, represents one of the first major moves to follow the merger between LogMeIn and the GoTo line of products set up back in February. The merger allowed for the join.me system to become part of several larger efforts including GoToMeeting, GoToTraining, and GoToWebinar.

Thanks to that connection, meeting attendees can now join a meeting call without having to actually pay for the call, a move which might sound like a minor cost savings, but when averaged out over a significant number of calls, represents substantial savings. Reports note that the total number of countries that can access such a service increases to 70, thanks to the range of countries that both join.me and the GoTo lines can reach.

LogMeIn's chief product officer, Chris Battles, commented, “We’ve long seen the benefits of offering OpenVoice Integrated to our GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, and GoToTraining customers, and we immediately saw the potential of adding the same functionality to join.me, giving those customers, for the first time, a toll-free calling solution once our companies merged. In just two months as one company we’ve been able to add value for join.me users by adding an option that reduces the barrier for meeting hosts to reach their clients, customers, or prospects making sure that attendees never have to pay the cost of the phone call.”

It's a move that really can't be seen as anything but being a winner. Not only is there a great new option in connectivity, but also one that allows for a much wider operating base. The whole point of using virtual office operations is to take advantage of a wider potential talent pool—not to mention adding flexibility to those users putting such systems to work—so why not allow coverage over the complete range of said talent pool?  A system like this allows those workers ready access to collaboration tools, which tends to improve overall operations.

This move will likely generate plenty of value going forward, and keep users turning to LogMeIn products as well. That will make the value chain work both ways, and serve as good news for the whole ecosystem.