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LINQware Communications, headquartered in Kenmore, Washington, brought their Collabrix product to the mix.
Collabrix offers an integrated suite of web and audio conferencing tools with strong security all of which is built around a presence-enabled, proprietary instant messaging system. Used as intended, Collabrix can completely change the way a company runs its business in terms of organization communications and collaboration. It is designed to be �on� all the time, not just when there is a need for a meeting. Unlike the other products featured, it has been specifically designed for ease of use and convenience and more particularly so that all of a company�s personnel will use and keep using it. The connection, collaboration environment and the power that they confer are always available.
From its Command Center, the hub of the collaborative environment, Collabrix users can immediately see their teams and team members with their current contact status. Collaboration begins by launching an instant messaging session and from within this an audio or a web conference, making available powerful tools for desktop and application sharing.
With one glance a user discovers who is available and how to reach them and can quickly locate current conferences switching between them if required. Additionally, the Collabrix IN/OUT board provides a means to determine when colleagues will return and what they are currently doing. Users can connect with others immediately by starting a conference or arrange to connect later by scheduling meetings, sending out meeting notices and automatically updating calendars. To simplify matters all communications and collaboration are managed from this one central location. Also provided are facilities to build a project team whose members can be organized by project, function, company, customer or client, using Collabrix to reflect specific work flows.
Also, from the Command Center a resource finder can be used to locate people and resources based on their specific areas of expertise (called role-based users) and submit collaboration requests. Previous conversations can be securely retrieved (IM conference transcripts are automatically archived) and users can track meeting identity management information to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, SEC and other legislation.
Collabrix makes use of high compression technologies and offers low, almost non-existent latency. With this comes an impressive download speed and secure file-sharing ability.
Collabrix is also a very secure product, offering 128-bit SSL encryption for most services with a higher 192-bit encryption level for web conferencing activities. Confidentiality is protected at every point in the process.
Figure 2. The Collabrix Command Center showing the nodes of the organization tree, including active IM conferences, available resources, the user�s meetings for today and contacts. For convenience, the Command Center can be �pinned� over all currently open windows by clicking on the first button below the File menu.
Ease of Use
Collabrix has been designed with both ease of use and convenience firmly in mind:
A user can begin conferencing with one or more individuals in many different ways:
� Selecting the Invite menu option from menu bar of the Command Center.
� Right clicking on a contact or contact group and select the Invite option.
� Highlighting contact(s) and then press the ENTER button.
� Highlight contacts and clicking on the INVITE button.
Simply by clicking on expandable nodes in the Command Center�s organization tree a user can instantly locate meetings scheduled for the day, as well as team members and resources.
Documents, presentations and applications can be viewed on a desktop purposely designed for sharing any type of information. The same space is used for document co-editing, application sharing and for all other collaborative activities.
Offering connection flexibility, meeting participants can be on a cell phone, working in a remote office, in a hotel or at home. With a cell phone, an Internet connection and a desktop you could use Collabrix anywhere in the world.
Collabrix� conferencing software is automatically set up to call meeting participants. The moderator and participants will not need to enter PINs or passwords. Collabrix will first dial the host and then will dial out to the requested meeting participants.
Users can create a conference as easily with one person as with a pre-specified group of individuals (or team), all at the click of a button, and can save conference call configurations for recurrent meetings of the same type with the same team members.
A Collabrix user can click and drag contacts into a conference from saved participants, from Outlook and from the Collabrix address book.
A user can quickly set and change his presence information by right clicking in the status bar at the bottom of the Command Center.
Comprehensive help is available through the Help tools included in the Collabrix client and live support from LINQware�s website, www.linqware.com.
LINQware Communications also offers two useful extensions to its main conferencing and collaboration product: SalesWatch and Support Watch. Using the SalesWatch extension, users can improve the effectiveness of their sales activities by:
� Inviting experts to answer client questions.
� Chatting with visitors to the company website, greeting them and offering assistance.
� Offering remote web support and guided tours of the website and in conference sharing presentations and other promotional documents.
� Where required, transferring the customer for assistance with a particular inquiry.
SalesWatch boosts relationship-building since a company can specifically recognize returning clients and immediately route them to an account manager.
The SupportWatch extension is a remote web-based support solution designed to provide faster incident resolution by leveraging Collabrix�s communications and presence capabilities.
The future is bright for Collabrix. As the product continues to develop it will incorporate a video conferencing ability, a facility for inbound audio conferences, audio hunt technologies, SMS messaging to mobile devices and enhanced web access.
NOTE: Guest/Test accounts are offered and free trial accounts are good for 14 days or for $100 in conferencing charges. Pricing is license-based according to a monthly or annual contract and is available for 5, 10, 25 or 100 web participants. Collabrix IM with pay-as-you-go audio and web conferencing is available on a single license for as low as $9.95 per month. LINQware also offers packages for 5 or 10 participants that include unlimited web conferencing, IM client and pay-as-you-go audio for $39 and $55 respectively.
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