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An Advertising Supplement to USA Todayweb & videoThe RHUB TM- 00 web conferencing applianceprovides a cost effective alternative to hostedweb conferencing services. The one-time purchase is paid back within three to five monthsby savings from subscription fees to web conferencing services. With TM- 00, you benefitfrom on-premise security, unlimited meetingsand users, meetings branded with your company name/logo and easy integration intoyou internal systems. Also, it comes with freeaudio conference service. No IT maintenanceis needed. The RHUB patent pending no-download-of-any-kind feature makes it easy for everyone to join your meetings within 5 secondsfrom a browser of cross-platforms: Windows,Mac, Linux, Unix and iPhone.InstantPresenter allows businesses and individuals to produce high quality webcasts, webinars,video conferences and web conferences. Presenters are able to broadcast live video, audio,share slides or their screen, conduct interactivepolling, take questions from the audience andmuch more. By eliminating the need for anydownloaded software to be installed, InstantPresenter makes the experience for viewers andpresenters alike as easy as possible.In tough economic times, businesses everywhere are looking for ways to connect to customers while trimming expenses and improvingproductivity.eBLVD Web Conferencing and Remote Accesssolutions are helping thousands of companiesempower their workforce with cost-effective,feature-rich web conferencing and remote access solutions. Our unlimited-use plans startat only 15 per month. Switch today and re Real-Time CollaborationRemote Collaboration StretchesBudgets And Cuts PollutionIf you were to ask the average business person if they truly enjoy the process of catching numerous flights around the world tomeet colleagues and clients, most would probably admit they would prefer to travel less yetstill be a familiar face to their contacts.At the same time, as the recession bites, companies are becoming increasingly aware oftheir dual responsibility to cut travel budgets aswell as meet longer standing commitments toreduce their carbon footprints. Hence, the appeal of reducing travel through web and videoconferencing holds great appeal for Americancompanies and their staff.In fact, according to Glenn Fleischman, Presidentof web conferencing provider Arkadin NorthAmerica (for further information see page ),there are benefits which go beyond reducedtravel budgets and carbon emissions.“The most obvious and well-documented benefit is reduction of travel-related environmentaleffects such as carbon footprint expansion andnatural resource depletion, but there are positive health benefits as well,” he says.“Reducing travel cuts down on fatigue, stressand sick time which puts less strain on companies, families and the health care system.”Human touchNevertheless, a common concern among executives is that whilst they can see the benefitof remote collaboration, both in financial andenvironmental terms, there is still a lingeringconcern that technology could take the humanelement out of dealing with contacts and bonding teams of colleagues. However, in many casesthe opposite can be true, Fleischman reveals.“Remote collaboration (RC) technologies willnever completely replace face to face business travel but that’s not really the goal,” heexplains.“While a portion of face to face business ismigrating to RC, my view is that most of theincrease in RC usage involves finding new andmore effective ways to communicate information. For example, instead of traveling tosee a customer four times per year, perhaps acompany will only travel one or two times fora face to face visit, but using RC tools it mightalso interact with the client an additional six toten times per year. So the total number of interactions actually increases and hopefully therelationship deepens. I see RC as one of severaltools in the suite of communication optionsand primarily a way to increase interaction; not“The CollabWorx SRTC platform is a flexible,scalable, and secure online collaboration solution that supports both asynchronous andreal-time communication. Based on patentedevent-sharing technology, SRTC provides asuite of collaboration tools that include multichannel audio, HD video, secure chat & instantmessaging, virtual whiteboards, real-timedocument editing, GIS integration & locationbased services, and desktop sharing. SRTC isplatform-independent and can be tailored tomeet specific customer requirements to enrichreal-time interaction while facilitating information sharing across the enterprise.”www.collabworx.com888-988-1688simply to replace one form of communicationwith another.”Although economic and environmental factorsare significant and often encourage a businessto investigate web conferencing vendors, feedback from video and web conferencing vendorssuggests that these are not the only factors involved. For companies who commit to the technology in the long term, the deciding pointstend to be increased output from employeeswho are better utilized in and around the officethan in the air and in airport lounges.For this reason, once the downturn hasprompted companies to examine travel budgets and invest in web and video conferencingit would appear likely that, when the economyrecovers, interest in collaborative technologieswill not wane.

An Advertising Supplement to USA Today5web & videoRandal A Lemke, PhDExecutive Director, InfoComm InternationalThe reduction in travel expenses is quicklyseen in today’s economic environment.But after companies and organizationsdeploy conferencing they also begin to see that itturns airport and ground travel time into productivetime. They are also able to include more relevant staffmembers since their travel does not need to be expensed. Finally, in today’s environment conferencing isgreen. The reduction of carbon usage for air or groundtravel is significant. Conferencing also has a rich mix ofmedia can reduce the amount of paper used in meetings and can save meeting records for later usage.The next big thing in conferencing is telepresence. Youcan now conduct conferences in life-size images thatare HD quality, which changes the way people interact.Sitting across a virtual table from meeting participants,you can see the non-verbal cues that are so importantto communication. You can also hear and speak innatural voice. Participating in a HD quality conferenceis instantly viewed as being natural. You can get all themessages and interact easily.Conferencing companies are deploying this technologynow and the future will only bring more telepresencecapability and more ways for people to interact fromtheir conference rooms and from their desktop.Chat WithoutThe NoiseDialing in to listen to a presentation or discussa project with several colleagues is an almostdaily routine for many busy business peopleand so a range of services have sprung up from manyaudio conferencing vendors to connect colleaguesin various offices.Although many companies will try to bring togetheremployees and clients on an internal phone system,Dave Rickert, President of BroadData cautions thatthis can lead to inferior quality calls on the one devicethat people have long become accustomed toreceiving good quality audio. Opting for a dedicatedcall conferencing service can also allow experts toensure a call is as clear as possible.“Most phone systems were not designed forconference calling. Audio conferencing provided bya conferencing service provider will perform muchbetter,” he says.“Poor audio quality on a standalone audio conferenceis often attributable to noise being brought into acall by a participant who has static on their line,or dialing in from a cell phone. We have technicalsupport that can be requested at any time duringan audio conference if there are any sound qualityissues and the tech support specialist can identifywhich participant is bringing the noise into theconference and resolve it by muting that line orasking that participant to drop and dial back in anattempt to get a better connection.”Satellite For The Big ScreenThe technology which allows roving reportersto file stories from every corner of theglobe is also being used by companies forhigh quality video conferencing.Rather than rely solely on the terrestrial webor telephone infrastructures, satellite videoconferencing can beam images of, say, a CEOaddress to multiple offices around the world withpicture and audio quality which Dori Schmitz,Director of Operations at SCS Communications,claims is most in demand from companies lookingto fill a large screen.“Clients often will say that they want to have that‘Nightline’ look or something similar,” she says.“It’s used most often for medium to large groupsbecause a satellite signal provides a broadcastquality signal that displays well on a large screenprojection system.”Flexibility keySatellite technology often needs to be combinedwith other forms of telecommunications, to givea truly interactive two-way discussion betweenthe typical scenario of one, or a small group ofdispersed speakers, and a larger audience. Hencea company needs to discuss its needs in advancewith a supplier to discover whether additionaltechnology is required, or a satellite link will suffice.“The actual design of the satellite videoconference varies and can be customized to meet thespecific needs of the meeting,” Schmitz adds.“Sometimes the message just needs to be one-way;the CEO’s address during an all employee meetingis a common example. Perhaps there will be aQ&A session? This can be done with a telephoneline coming in from the remote sites, with thequestion and answer both being rebroadcastover the satellite for all to hear.“In other situations, various elements of themeeting need to originate from more than onelocation; maybe the CEO is in Los Angeles, theDirector of Marketing is in Denver and the CFO is inLondon. A hybrid approach, involving a combinationof satellite broadcasts, telephone connectionsand remote downlinks make it all possible.”Hence, the advice is to pick a partner with careto ensure they can combine technologies arounda core satellite offering to ensure the requiredquality is achieved with the minimum hassle.

6An Advertising Supplement to USA Todayweb & videoApplication Advancementsfor Web ConferencersAs broadband penetration has improvedto give individuals and businessessufficient bandwidth to conduct webconferences between computers, so too has thesoftware behind each vendor’s service.As use of the web has become more sophisticated, web conferencing has had to stay aheadof the curve by allowing people not just to seeand hear one another but also to collaborate onprojects and integrate web conferencing from athird party vendor in to a company’s own systems,Marv Toyer at eBLVD.com explains.“Individuals and businesses both want an affordable, multipurpose solutions that allow othersoutside of their network to interact on a morepersonal level, share PC desktop materials andefficiently conduct hands-on collaboration andtraining,” he says.“These increased collaborative capabilities includereal-time multi-point audio, video and text sharing,the ability to‘push’electronic documents,handoutsand user-surveys as well as vertical integrationinto industries such as e-learning.“The ability to seamlessly integrate a web conferencing service into one’s existing Web or Intranetsites is very important, as is web conferencearchiving, which gives users the ability to mark itup to produce asynchronous content. “Going mobileWhile the advances that allow integration,collaboration and support largely exist and are, ofcourse, being constantly worked on,Toyer believeshome users and businesses will find there are further refinements in new areas web conferencingvendors are either working on or wishing for.“Some features we will be examining includehigh-definition (HD) video, support for multi

downloaded software to be installed, InstantP-resenter makes the experience for viewers and presenters alike as easy as possible. In tough economic times, businesses every-where are looking for ways to connect to cus-tomers while trimming expenses and improving productivity.