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.

"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.

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.)

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."

Reuter's Article on the Microsoft Meeting Crash
Tech Republic Blog on Live Meeting

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Unlocking WebEx Connect

WebEx has launched "WebEx Connect," which consists of the WebEx Connect Grid and the WebEx Connect Workspace. Via the WebEx Connect Platform, people are connected and integrated with their most critical business applications. No longer is there a disconnect among people, process, and technology.

The WebEx Connect Grid, provides a set of "connector" services so that any 3rd party application can be easily integrated with the WebEx suite of services. This platform benefits both partners and individual companies. Imagine if partners or ISV's could use the connectors to make their technologies accessible to the 25,000-plus WebEx customers? Talk about instant reach, credibility, and the potential for immediate breakthrough business results. On the flip side. imagine if WebEx customers could access any of these integrated technologies and select those that will enable them to be successful. If I need a CRM solution, I can choose between Sugar CRM and NetSuite among others. If I need a solution that will help my employees and client better visualize ideas and project plans, I can select MindManager 6.0 from MindJet.com

Here is another way to think about how impactful WebEx Connect will be. Just like you go to iTunes to download your favorite music, scrolling through the different genres of music, WebEx Connect is the same think but you are now shopping for applications. WebEx Connect is the technology marketplace for technology providers and buyers to connect and conduct business. Behind the scenes, WebEx is at the core of every single new business relationship that develops.

“By creating tight, two-way integration between multiple applications, WebEx Connect composite applications are the business equivalent of consumer mashups,” said Roopam Jain, principal analyst for conferencing and collaboration at Frost and Sullivan. "By merging business processes and data from several sources with WebEx collaborative applications, WebEx is eliminating the need to rewrite traditional software simply for the sake of being 'on-demand'.”

"Business Objects sees the launch of WebEx Connect as an excellent opportunity to take part in creating an online community that links people across the entire business ecosystem," said Steve Lucas, vice president of strategic markets at Business Objects. "Individuals can use WebEx Connect to build "mashups" by stitching together and customizing the business applications they need. By contributing the industry's leading business intelligence solutions, Business Objects is giving information workers an easy way to access and use critical data in the familiar environment of today's Web 2.0 applications."

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

The "New" Adobe Connect?

A few weeks ago Adobe announced "Adobe Connect," which is simply a rebranded version of the recently acquired Macromedia Breeze application with Adobe Acrobat. Same capabilities as before, nothing really new except for the integration piece and now a different name. It looks like Adobe is doing the same thing Macromedia did when they acquired the Breeze technology from Presidia and the same thing Microsoft did with Placeware and Groove Networks. Simply rebranding the same product and positioning the "new" product as a new product. (Casey Ryan from Nollenberger Capital Partners states, "Macromedia has been acquired and we believe their collaboration offerings will be less competitive as a piece of a larger company.") More on Adobe Connect

Initially, the strategy to integrate Breeze with Acrobat to instantly start meetings from PDF's is interesting but how useful is this really? (The Important of Integration) PDF's are static documents that cannot be revised or changed. How useful would it be to start a Breeze meeting and not have the ability to make changes to a document? Imagine a Marketing Manager starting a Breeze meeting from a marketing collateral piece that has already been converted to PDF. The Marketing Manager simply wants to review the final version with the VP of Marketing before they go into print. They step into the meeting together and the VP of Marketing decides he/she wants to see what the text would look like in a different font. Granted the meeting was launched from a PDF but now what? Zero changes can be made from the static PDF file! How productive, collaborative or efficient is this? More on Adobe Connect

I am not sure how much value or benefit the Breeze/PDf integration will provide, most likely very little. It is a unique differentiator for Adobe but not a very compelling one since many competitors like WebEx or Live Meeting could easily create this integration capability over night. I could see Adobe/Macromedia taking this integration a step further and integrating Breeze with Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Photoshop which could prove to be more fruitful. More on Adobe Connect

A few interesting quotes from analysts:
Claire Schooley from Forrester Research has stated, "Breeze does not integrate with many applications and systems out-of-the-box. It integrates with other systems through an extensive set of API's." (The Forrester Wave: Web Conferencing, Q2 2006)

In TMR's "Synchronous Learning Report 2006, "For new users-even those with experience with other synchronous tools- Breeze is a challenge to learn."
ZDNet Review: "Macromedia, like its competitors, bundles telephone and email support with its service. The Macromedia Breeze five-user, $375/month plan, for instance, allows you just five tech-support incidents per month, which is a bit stingy, in our opinion."

According to Frost & Sullivan, Breeze has a 0.3% market share.

I have also included a downloadable Excel spreadsheet that details the "research" Adobe/Macromedia performed when comparing their technology to industry leader, WebEx. It was very interesting to see the number of erroneous claims and data points they mentioned.

Take a look at the spreadsheet for a more accurate comparison between technology capabilities, infrastructure, along with other criteria like training and support that was not mentioned. More on Adobe Connect
Download macromedia_false_claims.xls

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert