Live Meeting Updates Aid Corporate Web Conferences

The Live Meeting Web conferencing service has been updated to help corporations manage usage and simplify access by corporate users. Formerly known as PlaceWare, the Live Meeting service enables users to deliver presentations and get audience feedback over the Web, typically in conjunction with a separate voice teleconference. Web conferencing services like Live Meeting continue to gain ground as a way to avoid business travel for in-person meetings, but Microsoft’s service lags WebEx, the current market-share leader.

Meeting Rooms on the Web

Interest in Web conferencing has grown as bandwidth costs have dropped and airline security has tightened, making travel for face-to-face meetings more costly and difficult. For one-to-many presentations, it’s often sufficient to e-mail the presentation to participants and organize a conference phone call. However, Web conferencing services like Live Meeting can simplify the management of question-and-answer sessions and provide more interaction between presenter and audience. The Radicati Group predicts that the Web conferencing market will grow from US$544 million in 2003 to US$2.2 billion by 2007.