The Web Conferencing Blog

Citrix Downplays Need for Video at SMB Level

As I mentioned in a blog in October...that Telepresence would enter the SMB and consumer markets, John Chambers: CEO of Cisco, has predicted that Telepresence will be in homes in less than a year. http://davidchao.typepad.com/webconferencingexpert/2008/10/telepresence-ma.html

Brett Caine, President of Citrix, sees things differently. Brett Caine sees little need or demand for video at the SMB level. He has also stated that there is little demand for instant messaging, video chat, and teleconferencing...though Citrix just acquired audio provider Vapps based in New Jersey. (It should be noted that Citrix does not have instant messaging or video capabilities today and perhaps why they the perception is that these solutions are of "little need or demand.")

The only potential obstacle that I can see with consumer-based Telepresence is internet bandwidth. Not every home has a broadband connection as some homes are still using solutions like NetZero. It will be the consumers who pay more for broadband that will see the benefit of Telepresence and want to pay for it, not the NetZero type users.

Telepresence Providers:

• Cisco
• HP Halo
• LifeSize.com (Small company that has done $14M in revenue)
• Tandberg
• Microsoft Roundtable

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Citrix Buys a Phone Company

Citrix ventures into the audio conferencing business with their acquisition of Vapps, based in New Jersey, for $26.6M. With the economy where it's at, the acquisition isn't that bad of an idea since there are many small business out there with cash-flow problems which an acquisition like this would solve. Citirx also benefits with a discounted purchasae price. (Vapps has about 15 employees and does about $2M in sales revenue.)

Vapps' main focus is on VoIP, something that Citrix has been trying to get right on their own with their Total Audio Package but have been unable to overcome the ongoing issues with audio echos and degradation.

It will be interesting to see what comes from the Vapps acquisition and if there will be integration with the Citrix solutions.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

GoToMeeting Service Crash

Last Tursday, August 7th, the GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar applications had a service crash!!!

Without going into the details of the service disruption email, Citrix basically said that the service issues were due to increased demand in their service. Though they claim to have made upgrades in their infrastructure, it appears that they did not.

The service disruption email was very well-crafted from the GoToMeeting marketing department. They did a great job of taking a very negative situation and spinning it around. "It's our fault, sorry for the inconvenience. Our service is really great but we apologies for the technical issues and apologies that our capacity planning team was not made aware of the infrastructure changes that were required to support or customer's growing needs."   

Some may view this in good light, other will most likely view this in bad light, causing some concerns of GoToMeeting's service reliability.


Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

GoToMeeting and Firewall Configuration

Here are insightful tips if you are having firewall problems with GoToMeeting:

If you have a personal firewall in place like Norton Firewall or ZoneAlarm, you need to make sure that GoToMeeting is not being blocked for security reasons. If it is blocked due to security risks, typically the normal default setting, you need to unblock GoToMeeting and then attempt to connect again.

If you wish to set your firewall to enable GoToMeeting, you can bypass the security block default. To do this, first launch GoToMeeting and then your firewall will alert you of the security risk and prompt you to allow GoToMeeting to access the Internet. Be sure to check box "Remember the answer each time I use this program." Then click "Yes" to enable GoToMeeting to access the Internet.

One thing to keep in mind is that this option does not mean you will not be subject to GoToMeeting URL blocking from your customer's side. This simply solves issues you might have with GoToMeeting across a personal firewall.

If you are in a "Business Environment" and experience firewall issues, you will need to contact your IT department for help. The IT department will know if the firewall has a content or application data scanning filter which may cause blocking or latency. If this is the case, verify that the IP ranges below will not be scanned or filtered by content or application data scanning filters by specifying exception IP ranges that will not be filtered.

If your security policy requires you to specify explicit IP ranges, then configure your firewall to limit port 8200 or 80 or 443 destination IP addresses to only the Citrix Online ranges listed below. (Click on link below)

Citrix Online SERVER / Datacenter IP Addresses for Use in Firewall Configurations
(Equivalent Specifications in 3 Comma Formats)
Download citrix_online_assigned_ip_ranges.xls

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Blog

New Version of Citrix GoToMeeting 4.0

There is marketing buzz about Citrix releasing a new version of GoToMeeting 4.0 Not quite sure of why there is a buzz since the only change they made was to finally support VoIP after many years of not being able to support it. (It's only 2-way streaming VoIP, so not very collaborative."

For GoToMeeting 4.0 VoIP to work you, need a USB microphone and headset. During initial tests, the general feedback was occasional audio glitches. Citrix stated that the GoToMeeting 4.0 audio delays were due to the fact that the group they were meeting with had an Internet connection that was heavily used by its employees. "Hmmm, isn't that every company out there? Does that mean that if you have employees that actually use the Internet then the Citrix VoIP will be subject to glitches and delays?" Sort of makes sense that Citrix also developed local PSTN calling as a backup to the anticipated GoToMeeting 4.0 VoIP issues. NOTE: If you experience VoIP re-verb, echo effects, then you can resort back to the standard telephone. Take a quick look at a Citrix email about their audio service for some reassurance: http://davidchao.typepad.com/webconferencingexpert/2007/11/gotowebinar-aud.html

You can also record with Citrix GoToMeeting 4.0 but you are required to have 1 GB of available storage, download a G2M2 recording codec, and are expected to wait 45 minutes for a 60 minute recording to "convert." Citrix recommends that you do nothing on your computer during this 45 minute conversion since the recording/conversion process requires lots of CPU. You also need to but a Dynametric Box. There is nothing like slapping a solution together on your own and hoping that it works. Personally, it makes me feel like a real techie!

The Citrix "Total Audio Service" is priced out at $49 per month and $59 per month for the corporate version.

At the end of the day, Citrix should stay focused on what they do well: servers. (Citrix officially plays in the Application Delivery Infrastructure market and their server technologies are sound.) They acquired XenSource in 2007 with the hopes of executing their corporate-wide strategy of providing desktop virtualization solutions while cutting into the market share of VMWare. XenServer and XenDesktop are the two main virtualization products offered by Citrix and both are worth keeping an eye on.

It will also be interesting to see how the Application Virtualization strategy of Citrix will effect their relationship with Microsoft. The way I see it, Citrix needs to keep a close watch on companies like VMWare, Virtual Iron, Juniper Networks, RiverBed Technologies, and F5 Networks since these are the main players in the Application Delivery Infrastructure* space.

* Application Delivery Infrastructure = application, server, desktop virtualization, application performance monitoring, SSL/VPN, gateways, WAN optimization, etc.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

GoToWebinar Audio Crash

Got my hands on an pretty interesting email and did not have a chance to publish it last week...

From: Justin Brown [mailto: xxxxxxxx@citrix.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 12:38 PM
To: Steve H
Subject: Citrix|Online - We apologize for your Webinar experience today

Between 10:05 AM and 10:20 AM PDT customers attempting to use the GoToWebinar conference bridge may have experienced a "fast busy signal" or received the message "all circuits are busy". This service interruption resulted from a TELCO trunk failure.

The GoToWebinar conference bridge began to stabilize at 10:26AM PDT.

We understand that our customers depend on GoToWebinar. Citrix Online is in the process of continuing to upgrade all of our services to ensure that our operations are scalable. We deeply regret the inconvenience of Today’s GoToWebinar service interruption.

Warm Regards.

Justin Brown | Customer Care Manager
Citrix Systems, Inc

Citrix Security Vulnerability

It amazes me how companies overlook internet security and procure technologies solely on price. I have mentioned numerous times that Citrix has security vulnerabilities in their technology and their infrastructure. Below is a summary from an article by Thomas Claburn from Information Week.

Recently, a security consultant found a vulnerability that allows an attackers to gain "user access level on integrated remote Citrix servers." This securily flaw enables attackers to access and execute remote commands on Citrix servers.

GnuCitizen, which identifies itself as a "cutting-edge think tank" and a "creative hacker organization," has posted a warning about a cross-site request forgery attack that can be made in conjunction with a malicious website to trick a Citrix user into opening a specially crafted Citrix independent computer architecture (ICA) file that would compromise his or her system.

If successful, the attacker could gain the ability to execute remote commands at the victim's access level.

"The success of the attack [relies] on the fact that the victim (the proxy) is part of a Citrix ring to which he/she can perform pass-through authentication," explains Petko D. Petkov, founder of GnuCitizen and its lead researcher, in a blog post. "Once a connection is instantiated, the victim will unwillingly and transparently login into Citrix and perform several commands specified by the attacker. The attacker can simply instruct the remote desktop to download files from a remote TFTP server and execute them locally. Once the attack is performed, the local connection is terminated and the Citrix session is cleared. No user interaction is required!"

In an e-mail, Petkov characterized the vulnerability as quite severe. "It is a remote command execution attack which cannot be easily fixed, mainly because it relies on features rather than bugs," he said. "If the attacker tricks a user from the targeted network into visiting a malicious Web site or opening a specially crafted ICA file, then they might be able to gain access to critical corporate assets. The attack is very simple and highly effective. Citrix is also a very popular platform. This makes this issue extremely problematic."

Petkov said that while he doubts the vulnerability is widely known, "anyone with the right methodology and mindset will be able to rediscover it."

Citrix said in an e-mailed statement that it "has become aware of recent blog postings relating to insecure deployment of Citrix products." The company said that while no specific vulnerability was identified, it recommends that its customers follow the security practices outlined on its Web site.

Before investing in technologies, make sure they have independent security certifications like WebTrust or SAS-70 Type I/Type II Certifications.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

GoToWebinar's Limitations

GoToWebinar, an extension of GoToMeeting, has gained some buzz in the market, mainly because it's so cheap. Kind of makes you wonder 1) How Citrix is making money from it? 2) How good or reliable is the solution? The old adage, "You pay for what you get," certainly rings true with all the GoTo products and GoToWebinar is nothing short of this.

Example 1. When sending out email invitations to a webinar, the coordinator needs to manually forward the registration details and invites. Citrix recommends that you Bcc: all email addresses for added privacy. What if you forget to do this? Well, everyone just inherited a email marketing list that you spent years building.

Example 2: GoToWebinar lacks a custom registration page so the coordinator cannot track registration in stages: Pending, Rejected, Approved, Updated, etc.

Example 3: GoToWebinar  forces you to use their outsourced 3rd party solution, FreeConferenceCall.com (Click here to read details about Cingular, Sprint, AT&T battling this Citrix partner.) (Article 2) GoToWebinar does not offer Audio Broadcasting, Integrated VoIP, or dial-out to attendee capabilities. These three telco giants are looking to block all Citrix audio users from using FreeConferenceCall.com Do you want to be caught up in the chaos? Who do you think is going to win this battle?

Example 4: Speaking of block. GoToWebinar and GoToMeeting are notorious for "blocked URL's." Companies will block the GoTo URL's so their employees cannot join GoTo session, mainly because these GoTo sessions are not backed by any 3rd party security certifications which means companies run the risk of computer viruses, worms, trojans, etc.

Quinlan Eddy, CEO of StarAnalytics, switched from GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar to WebEx because his company had recurring issues where the companies they were trying to meet online with blocked the GoTo URL's. In one instance with Citibank, Citibank simply told them they were no longer interested in seeing the demo. Lost revenue???

Example 5:  If you want to record your webinar, GoToWebinar requires that you have an input device like a microphone connected to your computer and then configured to the GoToWebinar audio settings. (I'm already getting lost with what this all means and how to set it up...)  Click here for the full list of instructions. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just click "Record," and your webinar would be recorded?

Another thing to consider during the GoToWebinar recording. You are required to have 1 GB of available storage, download a G2M2 recording codec, and are expected to wait 45 minutes for a 60 minute recording to "convert." Citrix recommends that you do nothing on your computer during this 45 minute conversion since the recording/conversion process requires lots of CPU.

Example 6: GoToWebinar CANNOT support the following:

• Lead source tracking ID's
• Automated lead scoring
• Integration into CRM marketing campaigns
• Online calendar of events
• Custom enrollment email messages
• Production services
• Custom animations in PowerPoint
• Virtual whiteboard
• Video streaming
• Integrated VoIP
• File transfer
• Real-time communications as everything relies on their Citrix Metaframe Presentation Server

At the end of the day, with all the GoTo Products, you pay for what you get. If you are willing to risk a failed event, perhaps lost business, damaged reputation, it might be a viable solution. Otherwise, if you are like most companies who are looking to minimize their investment risk and want to do all the right things, go with a market leader, a trusted and proven solution.

Your Ad Here

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

The GoToMeeting Buzz

I have to admit that there has been quite a buzz about GoToMeeting, maybe because it's a $49 per month product offering from a pretty reputable company. Citrix is a pubically traded company that sells Enterprise Application Integration Software, so they sell traditional servers, gateways and software for load balancing, application development, and resource management (Their flagship product is their Citrix Metaframe Presentation SERVER). Web collaboration is not their core competency, as 95% of their revenue comes from Metaframe Server sales.

Perhaps a bit of background would help at this point in time.

On February 27, 2004, Citrix acquired a company called ExpertCity and renamed the division Citrix Online, selling GoToAssist, GoToMyPC, and GoToMeeting. They are still very new to web collaboration, lack a robust real-time communications infrastructure, lack back-up sites, and have been know to subject customers to performance bottlenecks. I have heard from customers that it is a decent product if you are an independent IT Consultant doing a quick one on one, but not a good solution at the enterprise level since it lacks stability, key capabilities, and a professional look and feel.

GoToMeeting is built on a server-based "store and forward" architecture that relies on storing content and data on the Metaframe Server. This raises red flags for many companies from a security standpoint. I do not know of many companies that would be comfortable storing company information on a server outside their corporate firewall, but then again I wonder how many people are actually aware of how data is transmitted with GoToMeeting. Perhaps the only thing they are aware of is its $49 per month price. (Though they do support SSL data encryption, they have not earned any independent 3rd party security certifications.)

Interestingly enough when I scrubbed their annual report this is what I found:

* "Use of GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting, or GoToAssist services involves the storage and transmissions of customers' proprietary information, and security breaches could expose us to a risk or loss of this information and litigation, and possible liability."

* "Computer viruses could be introduced into our systems or those of our customers or suppliers, which could disrupt our network or make it inaccessible to our Citrix Online division customers."

* "We believe increased regulation is likely in the area of data privacy, and laws and regulations applying to the solicitation, collection, processing or use of personal or consumer information could affect our online customers' ability to use and share data and restricting our ability to store, process, and share data with these customers."

This should be a clear sign to any business that it needs to weigh the security consequences which may negatively impact the business against the GoToMeeting price. Is lost data, lost revenue, viruses, downtime, and dissatisfied customers worth it? Do you want to put your company's most important asset, INFORMATION, in the hands of a $49 per month product offering?

Your Ad Here

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

NetMeeting is a Dinosaur!

Every now and then I will come across a company that still uses NetMeeting as a customer-facing communication tool. I never understand why a company would subject their customers, partners, or prospects to the time consuming process required to establish a connection with NetMeeting. Imagine starting a customer meeting with, "Sure Mr. Customer, I can show you a quick demo of my product but can you first get your IT Admin on the phone so we can ask him/her if it's okay to open up ports in the firewall, make a quick configuration to the proxy server, and provide us with your IP address so I can get connected to you? Second, if other people want to see the demo, great but they have to watch the demo with you on your computer since NetMeeting is designed for only one on one's and it's daisy chain architecture creates a performance bottleneck if more people join...Thanks."

After spending 10-15 minutes finding the IT Admin and establishing a connection, you finally begin the demo. Five minute pass by and the customer asks if they can "test drive" the application. (They can't with NetMeeting) Then they ask if it's your product or NetMeeting that is slow. (You tell them it's NetMeeting of course but wonder if the customer thinks otherwise.) Then the meeting abruptly ends for no reason but you tell the customer that you accidently closed the connection and apologize. Finally, as you wrap things up, you wonder why they said, "Well, the budget is really tight right now. We are just collecting information and doing a tirekicking session, thanks for your time. We'll get back to you when things start picking up." (How to Establish a Netmeeting Connections Through a Firewall)

This is a scenario that I hear all the time from my personal customers who reduced their technology risk and made the switch.

If this isn't enough to get companies to start looking at alternative high-touch web collaboration solutions, how about the fact that Microsoft has discontinued this FREE product! (Download NetMeeting at CNET.com) What's Microsoft saying about their very own technology if they discontinue it and no longer support it? In addition, it lacks tools to monitor usage, lacks API's for integration, and does not support a record and playback capability necessary for compliance with new requirements for audit trails such as Sarbanes-Oxley.

Bottom line...NetMeeting is difficult to setup, not reliable, and is subject to many performance issues. It is a high risk gamble if you plan to use it for customer communications. Potential consequences...lost deals, lost revenue, lost market share, dissatisfied customers, update the resume, find a new job.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert