Conferencing system

Meeting24.tv is Japan web conferencing system that lets up to 24 users simultaneously hold meetings online through a web browser. The service is based on the assumption that other online meeting solutions such as TokBox, Cisco’s Webex, Polycom or Skype are just too complex. Meeting24.tv has simple, minimalistic interface, which is supposed to make it easy for anyone to use. There is no client installation needed, no registration, no document sharing, no video mail, no contact list and even no text chatting. Only the organizer of the planned meeting is required to sign up and receives a dedicated URL. The URL can then be mailed to a maximum of 24 users who just have to click on the link to go to the “meeting room”. They are then instantly able to see and talk to the other participants for up to 24 hours before the lights go out.

With the rise in adoption and availability of enterprise videoconferencing systems comes a warning from IT pioneers: Thinking this technology is simply plug-and-play will lead to disaster. "If you're going to spend all that money on videoconferencing -- especially HD, which isn't cheap -- don't cut corners. Otherwise, users will turn videoconferencing off and you'll do damage to your business," says Sergio Soto, videoconference technician supervisor at CoStar Group Inc., a commercial real estate information provider in Bethesda, Md.

Microsoft on Thursday said that one-third of MSN Messenger customers were continuing to experience sporadic access problems and disappearing "buddy lists." However, the service appeared to go down completely around 3 p.m. PDT, with no users able to log in. ***

Driven by broad market support for Internet standards and increasing business reliance on groupware products, the worldwide market for collaborative systems doubled in 1997, according to a report by the International Data Corporation. The study, released yesterday, put Lotus Development's Domino/Notes at the head of the 50 million new user market followed by Microsoft Exchange, Novell GroupWise, and Netscape SuiteSpot. Although Lotus commands the market, the authors of the report said they were surprised at the speed at which Microsoft has shrunk the gap between its Exchange and Lotus Domino/Notes. ***

Interop LAS VEGAS, Nevada--Macintosh users will soon be able to collaborate with their Windows friends-if they're patient. Farallon (FRLN) says it will adapt Microsoft's (MSFT) NetMeeting 2.0 collaboration software to the Macintosh, but not until next spring. Farallon CEO Alan Lefkof hinted that early versions of NetMeeting for Macs, which will be bundled with Farallon's Timbuktu Pro and distributed free to current users, might be available by the end of this year. But Farallon will port only the application- and data-sharing parts of NetMeeting, not the audio or video portions. ***