Who are the players?
Desktop/Multimedia Teleconferencing (DMT) can be broken down into three major catagories or functions Video Conferencing, Document Sharing and Internet Phones. Today, "Internet telephony" software programs generally provide some form of voice conferencing in real time between software packages running on computers at both ends of the communication. These programs commonly utilize packet-based communications services available through the Internet. Most products today offer more than one of these functions.
Some of the providers of the software packages make it for free, as a means to obtain competitive advantage as software providers specifically. As example, Microsoft is linking the Netmeeting software to their Internet Explorer software. The competitive advantage for Microsoft is not the Netmeeting software, but the Internet Explorer. Other provider, ShowMe SharedApp enables users to share their applications, by providing a common, identical view of an application and allowing users to collaboratively interact with the application. On the other hand, other players are focused as high-tech hardware providers. Intel, which have registered hardware and software as a trademark, is the best example of this strategy.
The product that we see changing the industry is Microsoft's Netmeeting.
This software can be downloaded from the Internet at no cost. Microsoft is bundling Netmeeting with Internet Explorer 4.0 in the hopes of the the added functionality allowing them to win the Browser Wars. The software allows Video conferencing and Audio over the internet as well as document sharing and file transfer. We feel this functionality along with the low price will help Microsoft dominate yet another market. The quality of the video is not at the level of other applications but we feel it's document and application sharing functions will make it a quick success.
Other Players include:
Another major player in the PC market, Intel sells the hardware and software for video conferencing under the ProShare tradmark. There solution focuses on the hardware side of the technology and improving the video quality. Although improvements in this technology are inevitable, the video conference quality is not essential in making the software an effective tool. Document collaboration should make the tool effective and useful. The ability to see the person on the other end is often not important.
Sun Systems also offers systems similar to Intel's Systems for the Solaris UNIX systems under the Show Me Share App heading.
ShowMe
SharedApp
Other players in video conferencing include Compression Laboratories, PictureTel, VTEL and Cybertron.
