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�Just as e-commerce has changed the way people buy books and music, WebEx is changing the way people work�
� Subrah S. Iyar (WebEx CEO)
WebEx Communications of Santa Clara, California, offered up for review its high impact Event Center. Event Center, specifically designed for the larger and high profile web event as represented by a sharply-focused lead generation web seminar, was intended from its inception to support the marketing arms and divisions of mid-size and large enterprises. It is therefore loaded with functions that these groups can appreciate and is particularly useful for �building brand equity� and for driving lead generation.
The WebEx portfolio of products is extensive, providing conferencing and collaboration capabilities in solutions that are tailored to support particular business functions and includes the following:
Training Center � incorporates measurements of assessment and e-commerce capability
Support Center � for offering technical support
Meeting Center � for general meetings purposes
Sales Center � for streamlining customer interactions
The newest is WebOffice, a product that provides for asynchronous collaboration (beyond real time) and, as its name suggests, is really a virtual office on the web. In this WebOffice users can post documents, meet, assign desks, keep and update a calendar, and issue and maintain group announcements.
Bundling provides WebEx customers with further flexibility. Customers can arrange to have any combination of WebEx products delivered in a bundle. For this reason Event Center is often bundled with Meeting Center. An enterprise suite is also available which might include Meeting Center, Event Center, Support Center and Training Center.
WebEx services are delivered on demand over the proprietary, global MediaTone network purpose-built to support and enhance real-time web communications. This network provides peace of mind with the security of 128-bit SSL and AES encryption.
Event Center
Like its companion WebEx products, Event Center, which is a fully-hosted solution, addresses very specific needs and requirements. With particular appeal to marketing groups, it is intended to provide a virtual auditorium for large audiences.
It is particularly suited to meetings where there will be numerous attendees such as training, investor relations, and company �all hands� meetings.
Event Center events are distinguished by the fact that communication is generally more one-way oriented than with other WebEx products; i.e., from a presenter or panelist(s) to a large audience of attendees. There are also more features to support collaborative presentation by individuals in different geographical locations, for example subject matter experts who will each give a part of the presentation. Nevertheless, Event Center does also offer some audience interaction tools including sophisticated annotation, application sharing (including co-editing of documents) and whiteboard with which Meeting Center users will be familiar.
More than the other WebEx products, Event Center offers moderator and panelists ways to control the event �behind the scenes� so that the audience continues to see a full-screen presentation without interruption. The use of floating �power panels� supports this function and allows the event host to view information such as attendee lists, questions from the audience and other event activity, along with information not seen by the event attendees. A much greater emphasis is placed on allowing and taking away privileges (such as chat, video and the ability to annotate). The moderator also determines whether specific windows will be made available to participants, whether the presentation will be delivered entirely in full screen mode or whether attendees can only see panelists. For security purposes, unlike Meeting Center, attendees cannot remotely control shared applications or desktops.
Like Training Center, Event Center also has an e-commerce module built in where, for example, a company is offering expensive and in-demand training such as compliance training.
Most importantly the WebEx Event Center places a far greater emphasis on event management (planning, promotion, delivery and follow-up), the automated generation and distribution of event email communications, scheduling and event marketing processes such as enrollment, and offers:
� Facilities to schedule upcoming events using the Pre-event interface. Users enter date, time, description and select their audio preferences. For example, should all participants be automatically muted upon entry?
� A means to invite persons to an event and to customize the event enrollment form to capture attendee demographics, to allocate a �score� to each and to track origins. Using Event Center�s automated email manager invites can quickly be set up by entering information to a supplied text or HTML template, reminders can be automatically scheduled together with any follow up emails such as thank yous.
� Updating of the event details to the MS Outlook and Lotus Notes calendars of selected attendees
� Event Center can send out automated communications, including: Enrollment notifications (pending, approved and rejected), Reminder(s), Thank yous and absentee follow-up letters
� A rehearsal facility is available. In addition, and when required, the WebEx Production Services Team can assist with technical, presentation and content issues. The team can produce an event from start to finish, including training, preparation consulting, providing technical support before and during the event, recording and archiving, coordinating and arranging for the requested teleconferencing services, and reporting post event. The team can also help with archiving the event for up to 90 days.
� Setting of Approval rules on the enrollment site to ensure that only persons with the required demographics can attend the event.
� Facilities to host the recorded event on a specific Event Center website.
Figure 3. Event Center showing Q&A, chat, roster, annotation tools and background presentation.
During an Event Center meeting a Host can do the following:
� Privately chat with an attendee.
� Change roles, letting other participants take on the presenter function and from anywhere in the world.
� Deliver a poll and display results to the audience.
� Include video for high impact presentations.
� Answer questions posed by attendees in the QA window.
� Email a link to all attendees at the event for a copy of the presentation.
After the event, Event Center�s post session tools can customize a registration form for the archived event, providing information about viewers, potential prospects can be contacted and the email manager used to send out customized letters, total enrollments and lead scores can be determined to assess event impact and attendance and other reports can be exported to a spreadsheet application for subsequent uploading into a customer CRM program.
Trends and directions
Frost and Sullivan, in a report published in June 2006, cite the continued and rapid expansion of the web conferencing market as enterprises continue to increase their global reach and therefore need an efficient way to communicate more easily, more effectively and for less. Advancements within VoIP and the integration of collaborative applications are also fueling this rate of adoption. The growing number of teleworkers is yet another driver for continuing growth in the web conferencing market.
There has been a perceptible move away from email to business-grade instant messaging as evinced by WebEx�s integration with AIM Pro and Genesys Meeting Center with MSN Messenger and Lotus Notes SameTime and other instant messaging packages.
For ease of use of the communications interface, more and more conferencing and collaboration products are providing moveable, resizable dockable floating windows or power panels in which information such as meeting rosters, chat dialogs and video transmissions can be displayed. WebEx and Genesys Conferencing both offer this facility.
As business-grade instant messaging becomes more available and widespread, conferencing and collaboration companies are adopting it. There can be no better example of this than Collabrix, which is entirely built around a proprietary presence-enabled instant messaging core.
There has also been a change in favor of providing ubiquitous access so that future conferencing and collaboration products will work with mobile devices of all descriptions and will incorporate advanced features such as identity management tools, SingleSignOn capability and further directory integration .
Finally, conferencing and collaboration packages are gradually merging into single, integrated products that offer all round communications, conferencing and collaboration capabilities. With three different approaches, LINQware Communications, Genesys Conferencing and WebEx Communications all provide examples of this trend.
All reviewed products were solid, and do, we believe, contribute greatly to both personal and workgroup productivity.
Companies mentioned in the article:
Frost and Sullivan
www.frost.com
Genesys Conferencing
www.genesys.com
LINQware Communications
www.linqware.com
WebEx Communications, Inc.
www.webex.com
Wainhouse Research
www.wainhouse.com
Martin Milner is a Senior Research Associate with Miercom (www.miercom.com) and can be reached at [email protected] |
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