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?
