The Web Conferencing Blog

Three Biggest Misconceptions About Cisco/WebEx

The web conferencing industry has been around a long time, starting in the late 1990's with the likes of Starlight Networks, Groupware by Lotus Notes and Placeware which was later bought by Microsoft in 2003. Having been in the web conferencing industry since 2004, I've heard a ton of misconceptions about WebEx.

Here are the three most common misconceptions I have heard about WebEx over the past 10 years:

1. All web conferencing solutions are equal.

2. WebEx is the most expensive web conferencing solution.

3. WebEx is the global market leader because it was first to market.

Misconception #1: All Web Conferencing Solutions are Equal:

No other web conferencing solution comes close to Cisco/WebEx:    

• 50% global market share in web conferencing
• 95% of the Fortune 500 are using Cisco Collaboration
• 200,000 Cisco Collaboration customers worldwide
• Over 450,000 WebEx meetings per day across 231 different countries
• Over 2.6 billion meeting minutes per month which equates to almost 5,000 years worth of 24/7/365 meetings collapsed into one month
• 46 million WebEx attendees per month
• Over 5.5 million WebEx mobile app downloads
• World class security and over a $500M cloud infrastructure investment
• Safe Harbor Certification
• SSAE 16 Certification
• ISO 27001/2 Certification
• End-to-End (E2E) encryption with AES, 256-bit key
• 100% enterprise-ready collaboration platform
• Suite of enterprise collaboration solutions: Meeting Center, Training Center, Event Center, Support Center, Cisco Jabber, WebEx Cloud Connected Audio, Collaboration Meeting Rooms
• Integrates with Cisco UC infrastructure: voice, video, IM/presence
• Integrates with 3rd party standards-based video endpoints. Read more about Cisco/WebEx Collaboration Meeting Rooms

Misconception #2: WebEx is the Most Expensive Web Conferencing Solution:

WebEx Meeting Center:

• $24 per month or $19 per month on an annual plan (Supports 8 people per meeting)
• $49 per month or $39 per month on an annual plan (Supports 25 people per meeting)
• $89 per month or $69 per month on an annual plan (Supports 100 people per meeting)
• Meeting Center includes video conferencing, application sharing, VoIP, markup tools, whiteboard, record and playback, mobile meetings, Outlook integration, cross-platform support, world class Cisco security and reliability
• WEAKNESS: WebEx is part of a much larger company, Cisco, which means innovation, strategic vision and execution, and technology priorities could take a back seat to the core business. 

Citrix GoToMeeting:

• Pro: $49 per month or $39 per month on an annual plan (Supports up to 25 attendees)
• Pro Plus: $69 per month or $56 per month on an annual plan (Supports up to 100 attendees)
• GoToMeeting includes video conferencing, desktop and application sharing, integrated phone and VoIP, mobile apps
• WEAKNESS: Limited integration with Unified Communication clients like Microsoft Lync and IBM Sametime. Challenges in penetrating enterprise IT departments that have higher expectations and complex requirements. GoToMeeting is part of a much larger company, Citrix Systems, which means innovation, strategic vision and execution, and technology priorities could take a back seat to the core business. 

Adobe Connect Pro: 

• $45 per month or $35 per month on an annual plan (Supports 25 people per meeting)
• $55 per month, no commitment, cancel anytime
• Adobe Connect Pro includes video conferencing, application sharing, mobility, VoIP
• WEAKNESS: Adobe Connect Pro is part of a much larger company, Adobe, which means innovation, strategic vision and execution, and technology priorities could take a back seat to the core business. Customer support for Adobe Connect Pro is also below average with customer support reps asking "Can you tell me what the product serial number on your CD is?"

As mentioned earlier, WebEx has a full web conferencing solution called Enterprise Edition which includes Meeting Center, Training Center, Event Center and Support Center. WebEx Enterprise Edition is highly differentiated and the most popular WebEx solution deployed across a company at a enterprise-wide level.

Misconception #3: WebEx is the Global Market Leader because it was First to Market:

WebEx was NOT first to market in web conferencing.

In 1999, Placeware was the market leader with a 45% market share and approximately $4.2M in revenue. Evoke and WebEx were up and coming companies but were not considered market leaders. Within a year, WebEx surpassed Placeware and became the #1 web conferencing solution. In 2003, Microsoft acquired Placeware and then rebranded the product to Microsoft Live Meeting. Today, Microsoft has about a 10% market share in web conferencing.

1999, was a pivotal year for web conferencing as that's the year when many players entered the market:

ExpertCity entered the market in 1999 and was later acquired by Citrix Systems in Dec 2003. Products included GoToMyPC, GoToAssist and GoToMeeting. Today, Citrix GoToMeeting has about a 20% market share in web conferencing.

Adobe Connect, originally known as Presedia Breeze in 1999 was acquired by Macromedia in 2003. Macromedia Breeze remained in the market until it was acquired by Adobe in 2006. Presedia was founded in 1999 in Sunnyvale, CA. Today, Adobe Connect has about a 5% market share in web conferencing.

Intercall, which resells a variety of different web conferencing solutions, including WebEx, Adobe Connect, and Microsoft, also has about a 5% market share in web conferencing.

2014 Web Conferencing Market Share (Synergy Research):

• Cisco/WebEx: 50%
• Citrix GoToMeeting: 20%
• Microsoft: 10%
• Adobe Connect: 5%
• Intercall: 5%

 

Microsoft: Skype Security Issues

John P. Mello Jr. from TechNewsWorld wrote that Skype had an on-and-off kind of week, fixing an embarrassing flaw in its password reset system and then being called too secure for many corporate networks because its encryption could allow company secrets to escape undetected. Then, it had to deal with a report that it had given out information on one of its users to a private investigator who simply asked for it.

Microsoft had to temporarily disable Skype's password reset feature last week after a Russian hacker revealed a simple way to lock users out of their accounts.

All an attacker needed to know was an email address associated with an account in order to hijack it. That address could be used to create a new account, which could then be used to reset the password and lock out the original user.

Ironically, Skype's robust security features are one reason some organizations bar it from their networks, said Tom Nichols, vice president for corporate marketing for Endace. "Skype is a risk because it's deeply encrypted and it can be used to transfer information out of an organization without anybody knowing what's going on," he told TechNewsWorld.

Skype is one of many applications running on corporate networks in defiance of company security policies, a study by Endace released last week revealed. Of the more than 100 senior network IT professionals from Fortune 500 companies, 53 percent confessed that their employees use applications that violate corporate policies, the study found.

After Skype fixed its password problem, it found itself in a bad light again when it was reported that the company had handed over the user information of a Dutch teenager and fan of WikiLeaks to a Texas cyber intelligence firm that just asked for it.

That appears to be a violation of Skype's privacy policy, which states it will not surrender user data "unless it is obliged to do so under applicable laws or by order of the competent authorities."

Related articles

Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing

Skype Cracked, All User Accounts Are Vulnerable

Skype accounts can be hacked with an email address

Microsoft Researching Skype Password Reset Security Hole

Skype blocks password resets after security hole discovered

Microsoft 365 June 28 Launch Date

Microsoft is planning to launch the cloud-based version of its popular Office productivity suite by the end of June.

Office 365, Microsoft's successor of Business Productivity Online Service (BPOS), Live@EDU and Office Live Small Business, is a cloud based version of Office suite which comes with World, Excel and PowerPoint. The online platform is Microsoft’s answer to Google’s Docs, which is being seen as a credible threat to Office's longtime dominance, consists of Microsoft-hosted Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online.

Microsoft BPOS Customers Hit by Multi-Day Outage May 12, 2011.

Office 365 has been in beta for a long time and Microsoft has repeatedly said that the platform will be made generally available by the end of this year. Microsoft first announced Office 365 in October last year and made the platform available as a public beta test in April.

But Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer finally revealed the company's plan to launch Office 365 in June at an event in New Delhi, India.

Office 365 for Education Pricing:

Office 365 for Education will include Exchange Online, as Live@Edu does now, but also will add SharePoint Online, Lync Online, Office Web Apps, support for My Sites (and other new team sites) and site search capabilities. The SharePoint Online and Lync Online functionality will be free for students, and $10 per month per user for educators and staff.

Microsoft also is offering a package, consisting of all of the above mentioned hosted services, plus a copy of Office Professional Plus (its highest end Office SKU) to run on users’ PCs. For this version of Office 365 for Education that includes Professional Plus, Microsoft plans to charge $2 per month per student and $14 per user per month for educators and staff.

 

Microsoft RoundTable Video Gets Patent Suit

I'm a personal shareholder in Microsoft (MSFT), mainly because I love their gaming products: XBOX 360, but when it comes to business practices, Microsoft has never been known as a "fair" player. Then again, who really is?

FullView, a company based in NJ is suing Microsoft and its RoundTable Webcam for patent infringement. FullView is requesting the UC District Court for the Northen District of California to require Microsoft to stop selling RoundTable and award FullView triple damages.

FullView's patent dates back to 1995 and covers a camera system with continuous full 360-degree view. The patent was officially awarded to FullView in March 2004.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Web-Based MSFT Office

It was only a matter of time until Microsoft entered the web-based applications space. In 2004 they acquired Placeware, now known as Live Meeting, as a small piece of their Unified Communications strategy. Though the web collaboration space has grown at a rate of 24%, Live Meeting has not faired as well.

Nevertheless, as Google has drawn a line in the sand with their Google Apps, Google Docs and Gmail, Microsoft has bolded made it clear that they are stepping over this line and competing directly with Google for greater "internet territory." (If you have not looked at Google Apps, I would highly recomend it. Quick, easy, simple to use. A great way to backup files.)

As of today, all consumers will be able to write, store, and edit documents in Microsoft Word and Excel directly onto the internet. Microsoft Office is one of their cash cows so this move is extremely aggressive but more importantly, it's a shift from the traditional software and server model to a subscription-based model. Even Microsoft Exchange will be offered as a monthly subscription, a huge change from companies having to shell out loads of money to buy servers to run enterprise email accounts. (Office 2007 and Vista equated to 56% of the company's revenue, which were $16.4B.)

The MSFT Office Live Workspace will compete directly against WebEx WorkSpace and others. (WebEx acquired Intranets.com, founded in 1999 by Rick Faulk, in August of 2005 for $45M.) Both applications enable users to store documents, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations online which can then be accessed from any computer with an internet connection. Files can be accesses as read-only or read-write with revisioning capacbilities. This creates a central document repository and minimizes information float and multiple revised documents typically circulating via email.

In the end, it's what I've said since day 1, the Software as a Service (SaaS) model is here to stay. We are seeing fundamental shifts in the all technology marketplaces and strategic acquisitions by large enterprises such as Cisco, Oracle, IBM, Google, Yahoo.

Yahoo bought Zimbra for $359M: directly competes with Exchange as a web-based solution
Cisco bought WebEx for $3.2B for web collaboration and ubified communications
Google bought Postini, an email filtering solution
IBM acquired Web Dialogs, a web conferencing provider, for an undisclosed amount

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

 

MSFT to Buy FAST???

Search Engine Optimization and Search in general has always been a fascination for me. On a personal level, I keep up with search-related news but rarely blog about it since it does not pertain to web conferencing. However, since Microsoft is involved and a potential acquisition is on the table, I decided to comment on it.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it would buy Fast Search and Transfer (FAST) for $1.2 billion cash buy-out. FAST is a player in the enterprise search market, an area that Google is looking to target. (Other players in the enterprise search market include Autonomy and Vivisimo.)

The reported $1.2 billion is an estimated 42% premium on the FAST shares which trade in Norway. The company is based in Oslo, Norway. In its most recent third quarter, FAST had revenue of $35.6 million, up 4 percent from the second quarter. Third quarter recurring revenue was up 65 percent from a year ago. Fiscal 2006 revenue topped $162 million, according to FAST’s annual report. The company is profitable and had $137.9 million in cash at the end of its third quarter.

I expect that FAST will be integrated into Microsoft SharePoint, one of the fastest growth software segments in the company, which cleared $800M in sales at year end June 30th. The enterprise search space is wide open as there is no dominate leader. By bundling FAST with SharePoint, this creates tremendous technology differentiation on the enterprise search level. A very interesting play for Microsoft.

There is no doubt in my mind that Google or other enterprise companies like HP, Oracle or IBM will jump on the search acquistion band wagon.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Live Meeting 2007 Launched

Microsoft has recently released Live Meeting 2007. Since it is still based off the old Placeware technology which is Java-based, I'm curious of the type of product and code changes that went into this version since Java and Windows play so nicely together. :)

Live Meeting 2007 starts off with a knockout punch, requiring a massive 15 MB download for first time attendees! How is that for listening to customer feedback and providing customers with the exact opposite: an even larger, more time-consuming client download so all attendees can wait even longer to join meetings...assuming they did not run into any firewall or Active X issues.

The roll-out of this new version is true to Microsoft-fashion: difficult and challenging with plenty of technical issues. Even though internal Microsoft sources confirmed that the 2007 version had multiple technical issues during beta testing and during their internal roll-out, they still released it. (Someone had their MBO's tied to a September launch, I presume.)

The launch was such a smash hit that Microsoft had to recall the Live Meeting 2007 Free Trial because there were too many recurring technical issues. The solution: Microsoft reverted back to Live Meeting 2005 for the free trial. After more extensive internal testing and troubleshooting, the problems were resolved...

...Earlier this week at Microsoft's Unified Communications launch event, the Microsoft Web Conferencing Team demoed Live Meeting 2007. What a graceful and flawless flop. Three specific areas got the audience to roll their eyes back and shrug shoulders with the, "Not again attitude."

1. When they attempted to use VoIP for the first time, the presenter and the remote attendee could not hear each other at all.
2. When the remote attendee was asked to share an application, it did not work.
3. Near the end of the product demo, when they thought the failed VoIP was fixed, they tried VoIP again and instead of no sound, the entire audience witnessed a loud screeching sound that made everyone cringe. (Finger nails on a chalkboard ring a bell?)

In addition, ZERO changes have been made to the Live Meeting architecture as it still employs a "store and forward" architecture, meaning users are still required to leverage the Microsoft iVault Server to store meeting content before, during and after meetings. Companies are not comfortable storing corporate or customer data on a server outside of the corporate firewall. This architecture, similar to all other web collaboration technologies, is why Live Meeting has not earned a single independent 3rd party security certification and why they continue to lose market share. (1999 they had 45%, 2007 they have 14%)

Other Microsoft Security Vulnerability News:

• October 11th: "Microsoft Warns of Dangerous URI Security Vulnerability"

Old David Letterman Bit on Microsoft:
Download letterman1.Gates.wmv

Thanks
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

 

Microsoft Vista

With the new Vista Operating System, Microsoft has once again proven that is stands behind it's traditional fat-client business model. Considering that Windows and Office account for more than 60% of the companies revenue, I suppose it make sense to stick with what has worked in the past. Only problem is that ultimately it's the customer that suffers in the end with the hefty annual fees for the upgrades.

I am still a huge believer in the Software as a Service model simply because of the benefits that the customer immediately realizes. Low risk, low cost, zero implementation.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

MSFT Live Meeting Crashes!!!

Upon my return from Las Vegas, some very, very compelling news was waiting for me in my inbox..."Security Rivals Shut Out Of Microsoft Meeting." Microsoft hosted an online meeting last Thursday using their very own "Live Meeting" solution to discuss Windows Vista with Symantec and McAfee among others. About 15 minutes into the presentation, the meeting crashed and Symantec and McAfee were unable to log back in. Live Meeting Lay-off

"Microsoft hosted an online meeting this morning, but it never really got started," said Siobhan MacDermott, a McAfee spokeswoman. "Despite numerous attempts to reconnect, we were never able to get back into the meeting. However, we were notified that the meeting had ended."

Symantec had a similar experience, said Cris Paden, a company spokesman. "Our team was shut out, and only one person was able to get back in," he said. Live Meeting Blog

Apparently the Live Meeting camp said they sent out "wrong" invites to all attendees. (They sent out invites out as presenters.)

I can understand that these crashes can happen as no technology is 100% perfect, however, one still needs to question the Live Meeting platform as it pertains to scalability, security, fault tolerance and performance. Perhaps the meeting crashed because the "wrong" invitations were sent out, seems a bit unlikely to me but who knows? The reality is that there is not one company out there that would take on that risk and want be in the sames shoes as Microsoft on Thursday. Who would want to handle all that heat? For small companies, a meeting crash like this with their respective partners or clients...not sure if they would be able to bounce back like Microsoft could. The damage to reputation and credibility of a small to mid-size company might not be repairable.

(Live Meeting is a very small piece of the Microsoft Product Suite as it it part of "Information Worker" Business Unit meaning it competes for resources and funding with Microsoft Office and Visio. Pretty tough competition within the same product family. One has to wonder about the liklihood of Live Meeting getting lost in the shuffle of all the other Microsoft products that actually contribute significantly to Microsoft's top line.) More on Live Meeting

In simplest form, perhaps the meeting crashed because the system could not accommodate all attendees. The smaller security-based companies apparently had no issues logging in so why were some of the companies like Symantec and McAfee unable to log in while others were?

"More than 20 partners successfully signed on and participated in the meeting," the Microsoft representative said.

Note to self, "This is a serious RED FLAG when evaluating Live Meeting."

CNET Article on the Microsoft Meeting Crash
Tech Republic Blog on Live Meeting
Live Meeting Lay-off

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Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

A Blog from Tech Republic on LiveMeeting

An interesting "Why Can't MSFT LiveMeeting Stay Alive" BLOG from George Ou at Tech Republic. (http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/Ou/?p=215)

Why can't MS LiveMeeting stay alive?
Date: May 11, 2006 @ 5:19 am
Categories: Infrastructure

[Updated 1:35 PM: The cause for the problems with LiveMeeting has been found] Fellow blogger Marc Orchant had a super handy tip the other day to sign up for a Microsoft LiveMeeting seminar this morning given by author Cliff Atkinson. The topic was about moving beyond the same old boring bullet points that conventional wisdom tells us to do. Aside from a horrible meeting experience, I found the seminar so useful that I actually bought the book today since I've been boring my audience to tears with some of my long bullet point presentations. More on Live Meeting

Now you're probably wondering what this business about a horrible meeting experience is. Let me put it this way; Microsoft's Live Meeting has a long way to go! When I tried to sign on to the seminar this morning, it gave me an error that it was full and that I had to check back. Ok, maybe too many people joined and I'll just come back in a little bit and try again like the nice error message says. I come back 20 minutes later and it seems that I'm going to get through this time. LiveMeeting prompts me to download and install software, so I do it and install the LiveMeeting software and I finally get into the meeting half way through. While the initial delay was hard to excuse, I can let it slide since it's a free meeting and I'm a forgiving kind of person. But you would think it's clear sailing from now on right? Wrong! It gets worse, much worse. More on Live Meeting

As I navigate the LiveMeeting interface, it mysteriously vanishes on me except for one browser window that offers me a chance to reconnect. Ok, that was strange; so I click reconnect and get back in. At that point a friend on IM sends me a text note on Skype and a message box pops up and obtains focus (focus is the active Window or item on a graphical desktop interface). As soon as Skype obtains focus and LiveMeeting loses it, poof – my LiveMeeting session is gone and I have to sign back in again. At this point, I'm curious to see what happened so I clicked on the desktop again and poof LiveMeeting is dead and I have to sign on again. At this point, I had missed most of the seminar and I really wanted to finish it so I closed my IM stuff and exited all other applications that might pop up and obtain focus away from LiveMeeting. After all that, I rejoined the meeting and finished it.

So what's the reason for this crazy behavior? I'm not running any strange software and I'm running the latest patched version of IE6 with Windows XP SP2 so there nothing special about my system that should cause these problems. One possibility is that because the seminar was closed off for PDF exports, it is possible that I triggered some sort of security mechanism that LiveMeeting will auto-close thinking I might try and implement some sort of screen capture utility. If that was the case, it would be the dumbest thing I ever heard because this would really tick people off and I could use my high resolution digital camera to take pictures of the seminar and use an audio recorder if I had wanted to. If this isn't the reason and this is some sort of bug, I don't know how something this severe can get past quality assurance.

The truth of the matter is, most people probably won't care and will just stick to the mature web conferencing veteran WebEX. Microsoft bought WebEX competitor Placeware a few years ago which at the time was at a substantial technological disadvantage to WebEX. LiveMeeting seems to have caught up a little as far as its ability to process vector art and effects, but its usability is as bad as or worse than it's ever been.

Live Meeting Crashes
Live Meeting Lay-off

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Thanks,

David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert