The Web Conferencing Blog

Citrix to Layoff 10% as Q4 Numbers Down

Citrix lost 4.2% on net income for Q4 as license sales declined. In response to the decrease in its number, Citrix will reduce 10% of its global workforce as a cost cutting measure as the downturn in the economy has hurt the demand for their technology products. The job cut is expected to save the company $50M in employee expenses yearly before taxes.

The first set of Citrix lay-offs were expected today.

Interestingly enough, Microsoft had their first ever round of layoffs last week which impacted 5,000 workers, approximately 5% of the workforce.

Through Tuesday, U.S. companies had announced more than 519,895 job cuts since Nov. 1, according to Bloomberg data.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Xobni Product Review for Email Management

 

Bill Gates called Xobni, "The next generation of social networking."

I have read about Xobni, inbox spelled backwards, in a variety of product reviews but never had the chance to download it and give it a try. There are just too many cool applications to try but with enough word of mouth, I finally decided to try Xobni.

Sooo impressive!

It was a super easy download process with a quick MSFT Outlook reboot. (Just an Outlook plug-in.) Xobni then automatically indexed my email folders. From the Xobni side bar, I access my email analytics. Very slick!

Xobni creates a profile for every person that emails you. Within the profile contains information like relationship stats, contact info, social connections, threaded conversations and shared attachments.  So if I can't remember the name of a document but remember who sent it to me, I simply pull up the person's profile in the Xobni side bar and locate the document in the "Files Exchanged" section. The same is true for email exchanges. If I can remember either the person I had the email exchange with or can remember keywords of the conversation, Xobni will do a comprehensive email search to help find the threaded email communication. (The Xobni search piece works like Google Desktop and very effective.)

Another interesting email analytic that Xobni provides is the time of day when you are most productive with inbound/outbound emails, what these ratios are, as well as, how responsive people are and when they tend to reply back to your emails. I can also see when my emails peak during a given day, week or month and who sends me the most emails in that timeframe.

Xobni is also integrated with Linkedin.com, Facebook, Yahoo email, Hoovers and Skype. This is where the social networking aspect of Xobni comes into play. I can promote updates on my Linkedin profile, allow people to see new pictures I added to Facebook, look up company information from Hoovers all from the Xobni Profile that was created. I can also quickly check to see if the person has a profile on any of these sites and if they do, quickly add them as a connection.

Overall, Xobni is a great application to have. If you have issues with email management, want to capture back countless hours of searching for information that you never end up finding, download Xobni now!

Xobni Video Intro:
http://www.xobni.com/learnmore/

Interesting Xobni Stats:

·         232.5B corporate emails sent and received daily, 72% are spam

·         133 emails sent and received per day by corporate users

·         701M corporate mailboxes worldwide

·         MSFT Exchange has 59% market share in corporate email

·         Next four years companies will spend $17B in email software

·         Enterprise email costs an average of $435.85 per user per year

 

 

* There is no financial compensation for this blog.

 

GoToMeeting Firewall Issues

Using GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar with Firewalls  

Using GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar with personal firewalls

If you have a personal firewall (ZoneAlarm®, Norton Personal Firewall™, etc.) installed, make sure that GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar is not being blocked. If so, unblock GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar and try again.

Additionally, you can enable your personal firewall so that GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar can access the Internet every time you need it to.

 

 Enabling GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar to access the Internet

The first time you run GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar on a PC that has a firewall installed, you will set off the firewall and be prompted to allow GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar to access the Internet.

1. Select the check box to Remember the answer each time I use this program.

2. Click Yes to enable GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar to access the Internet.

 

Using GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar within a Business Environment

If you do not have a personal firewall but are in a "Business Environment," you may have a hardware firewall. Please provide the document found at www.citrixonline.com/iprange to your IT department so that they may allow GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar to connect.

 

If a connection still cannot be established, please contact Customer Care for support

 

Customer Care
(800) 263-6317 (US and Canada, toll free)
+1 (805) 690-5753 (direct dial)
gotomeetingcare@citrixonline.com

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/default/help/g2m/troubleshooting/connection_test_help.htm

Top Social Media Websites

Interesting stats from Comscore...

Top Social Media Sites (ranked by unique worldwide visitors November, 2008; ComScore)

1. Blogger (222 million)
2. Facebook (200 million)
3. MySpace (126 million)
4. Wordpress (114 million)
5. Windows Live Spaces (87 million)
6. Yahoo Geocities (69 million)
7. Flickr (64 million)
8. hi5 (58 million)
9. Orkut (46 million)
10. Six Apart (46 million)
11. Baidu Space (40 million)
12. Friendster (31 million)
13. 56.com (29 million)
14. Webs.com (24 million)
15. Bebo (24 million)
16. Scribd (23 million)
17. Lycos Tripod (23 million)
18. Tagged (22 million)
19. imeem (22 million)
20. Netlog (21 million)

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Cisco Telepresence Tops ABI's Vendor Matrix

ABI Research released a Vendor Matrix Report where Cisco's Telepresence came out #1. Tandberg and Teliris were in spot 2 and 3, respectively.

“Cisco emerged as the overall telepresence equipment winner based on its superior telepresence ecosystem,” said ABI Research Vice President Stan Schatt.

What made Cisco number one are its tight integration of unified communications, its financial stability, its partnerships and its channel, say analysts.

 

The Vendor Matrix is an analytical tool developed by ABI Research to provide an understanding of vendors’ positions in specific markets. Vendors are assessed on the parameters of innovation” and implementation across several “criteria” unique to each vendor matrix, the Researcher said in a statement.

 

ABI Research says it examined the vendors’ partnerships and channels, their financial stability, their technology, and the nature of their customer base to know the innovative nature of the vendor.

 

List of ABI Research's Vendor Matrix

 

Thanks,

Google's Top 10 Products. What are they?

Back in 1999, I use to play pick up soccer in Mountain View, CA at a park called Eagle Park. I remember playing against a bunch of people who wore shirts that said "Google" on them. I had no idea what Google was at the time and I was working for a e-commerce company...who is still a publically-traded company and doing well today but to go back to 1999 and work for Google, WOW!!!

Nonetheless, I am always amazed at all Google products. Everything they come out with is easy, intuitive, and catches on with the public so fast! I remember 3 years ago the first time a friend of mine showed me Google Earth and zoomed in on the streets of Manhattan and then quickly took me to Rome in a matter of seconds. Just amazing technology!

In terms of Google's most popular products, Google Search holds the #1 spot with an estimated 136.6 million unique visitors in the U.S, Google Maps with 36 million is #2, Image Search with 31.7 million is #3, and Gmail with 10.5 million is #4. 

Source: Quantcast

1. Google Search
2. Google Maps
3. Google Image Search
4. Gmail
5. Google Book Search
6. Google News
7. Google Video Search
8. Picasa
9. Google Earth
10. Google Groups

Source: ComScore

1. Google Search
2. Google Image Search
3. Google Maps
4. Gmail
5. Google News Search
6. Google Video Search
7. Google Product Search
8. Google Book Search
9. Picasa
10. Google Earth

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Expensive Software Audits

A few months ago I read an interesting article by a news writer, Zach Church. I don't remember where I saw the article or what the exact title was. I presume is was something around "software audits," since that article is the motivation of this blog.

In summary, Zach's article was about a CIO from Austin, TX that got slapped with a $10,000 fine on his Microsoft Exchange licenses and a $100,000 fine in non compliant licenses with Autodesk!!! OUCH!!!

From what I have seen, many surveys state that 65% - 87% of IT executives are not prepared for software audits and do not actively manage software licenses, mostly because the task is very time consuming and manual. Most also know that they should invest money into technologies that automate compliance and provide a snapshot of the overall status of IT but consider these technologies as "nice to have" in today's tough economic times. Many also state that they just don't think they will get audited either by the vendor or by a 3rd party software auditing agency like the Business Software Alliance...that they are just playing the odds of, "It won't happen to me."

Simple solution: To avoid software license penalties, INVEST in systems management-related technologies that provide visibility across the entire enterprise with modules, such as, asset management, asset discovery, patch management, and software distribution. Rather than pay hefty fines, which are sunk costs, why not invest the money in preventative technologies and capture a return year after year.

Of the modules listed above, asset management is the most critical as it allows for significant cost savings in direct expenditure on software and related process and infrastructure costs. Asset management enables strategic infrastructure planning, prevents over-licensing and under-licensing and identifies over-deployment of hardware and its associated costs. EX: A company has 300 licenses of Adobe Acrobat but only 100 employees use Adobe Acrobat. Asset management can identify the software under-utilization and make appropriate changes when it comes time to renew the Adobe Acrobat licenses. The flip side can also occur where a company is using 400 licenses but only signed up for 300. With over-utilization, the company would simply buy more licenses to stay in compliance and ultimately avoid software fines.

Asset management also allows the IT department to control exactly what software an employee can access and significantly reduces the opportunity for users to introduce unlicensed software on to networks.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert