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Online conferencing - an opportunity for resellers?

Meet and greet from the comfort of your desk

Either way, once the service is available the subscriber (or licence owner) invites attendees to join a conference. The attendees pay nothing, either joining in using a free agent which they download, or a more rudimentary web interface. The subscribing organisation can pay either for a number of named users, for its own meeting room, or by minutes of conference time used – it varies by vendor.

The vendors have agreed no standards – there is no equivalent of the SIP (session initiation protocol) standard for voice over IP. This means that all attendees have to have a copy of the agent or use the web interface for whatever conferencing service the organiser has subscribed to. This is not a big issue for conferencing within organisations where there can be an agreed single product to use and everyone has the agent on their desktop.

But much online conferencing takes place between companies. This means many will need multiple agents on their desktop, or have to use the more restricted web interface which, for instance, may not allow application sharing. This can be a problem for those who are not allowed to download applications from the internet and, even if you can, it can take a while to join a conference if you have not downloaded the agent before or if a new version of the agent is available. Some vendors, like Genesys, only provide a web interface.

Most of the vendors will sell via resellers, the exception being Citrix Online which only sells direct. WebEx sells mostly directly, but does have some reseller partners. Microsoft has recently made is LiveMeeting service more widely available via the channel, where previously it had only worked with a few preferred partners like BT, Intercall, and Verizon. Genesys and IBM will sell via partners and Interwise says it is actively seeking new resellers in Europe.

If you do establish a relationship with one of the vendors and start selling subscriptions to an online conferencing service, you will never have a better excuse for not getting on a plane, or snarled up in a traffic jam – there is no better way to demo the product than sitting back relaxed at your desk.

Copyright © 2007,

Bob Tarzey is a service director at Quocirca focused on the route to market for IT products and services in Europe. Quocirca (www.quocirca.com) is a UK based perceptional research and analysis firm with expertise in the European and global IT markets.

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