The web conferencing news today presents a challenge for established service providers such as Citrix GoToMeeting and Cisco WebEx.
I’ll cover several breaking stories today. I think they present an interesting picture when looked at together.
Synergy Research Group published their report of Enterprise Communications & Collaboration Market Analysis covering end of year 2010. It found that the overall market grew to $22.3 billion and that the strongest market segment, posting a 35% increase year over year, was telepresence/videoconferencing. This is the first time that segment has recorded a double-digit share of the overall market as well.
“In 2010, we saw accelerated spending on IP Telephony, Web/Audio Conferencing, Videoconferencing and a variety of Collaboration tools, especially in those organizations with 100-500 users. And to no surprise, the strongest growth was measured for those solutions that provided a fast return on cost reductions and productivity gains,” said Jeremy Duke, Founder & Principal Analyst, Synergy Research Group.
Read the complete press release here on Marketwire.
Now, keep that in mind as we move to the next story. The service formerly known as “Freebinar” has changed its name to “AnyMeeting.” It remains free of any usage charges (though participants who use phone lines rather than the built-in VOIP service will have to pay for phone usage) and it claims to match Cisco WebEx and Citrix GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar feature for feature. The only substantial distinction is that AnyMeeting places advertising in the corner of your screen, making it less suitable for enterprise operations. In addition:
As part of the announcement of its name change, AnyMeeting also introduced support for video streaming from a webcam as part of an online conference — a function that some of the paid services have yet to support.
Read the rest of the story on Information Week.
And last but not least, there’s a new announcement from FuzeBox that their Fuze Meeting service, which is priced similarly to GoToMeeting and WebEx, now supports true multi-party HD video conferencing, including support for the iPad 2 and Motorola Xoom mobile devices. This means face-to-face conferencing — a feature that WebEx and GoToMeeting do not have but free service AnyMeeting does — in addition to the other standard collaboration features like screen sharing. Read more in the story by Carolyn JDawson on TMC.net.
How do these snapshots assemble into a bigger picture? Well, if I were Cisco or Citrix, I’d bet getting just a little concerned. On the one side there’s the free service AnyMeeting snapping up the most cost-conscious customers and offering them real video conferencing. On the other side there’s Fuze Meeting with similar pricing plus what’s probably the most-requested feature missing from their services — again, video conferencing. It’s a situation that calls for a strong response. Will they step up to the challenge?
Gotomeeting is one of my favorite tools to use for presenting virtually. I also enjoy many of the features Webex offers online entrepreneurs.
Thank you for sharing, lots of valuable content!
Thanks for your comment. It will be interesting to see what GoToMeeting and WebEx do in this rapidly changing market. Will they add new features? Will they cut prices? Will they go for more partnerships and joint venture — or even acquisitions? Stay tuned!
Isn’t technology amazing? Small businesses have so many options these days that never would have been feasible financially just a few years ago.
I only partially agree that Citrix GoToMeting and Cisco WebEx have to be concerned. Such upstart competition has been around since at 2002 and revenue has continued to be realized. Heck, I remember when Citrix was the upstart in WebEx’s face. Anyway, market share may soon be a different story, but since the technology continues its upward trajectory I think there’s more then enough money to be spread around.
Also, this article makes it seem that functionality across vendors has parity. I disagree. It is unlikely that any of these smaller vendors have invested millions of dollars (or partnered) on their global infrastructure to provide an SLA (Service Level Agreement) of at least 99.9%. This also means that their global network may lead to poor performance for attendees in other parts of the world. As you eluded to in the article, these smaller vendors are likely only to gain traction in smaller businesses. However, an IT Director at a global 500 employee organization these kind of strikes may be enough to eliminate a smaller vendors from their selection process.
I worked first as a designer then a developer ever since the dot com boon in the late nineties and I have long waited for the internet to realize its true potential. The idea that we could stay connected remotely through video conferencing, first inspired me when I saw those video phone booths in Disney’s Epcot Center and this idea is what attracted me to the internet field in the first place. It seems that technology is now beginning to catch up and push the internet into a new age.
The Any Meeting software seems comparable to the established brands. About the ad rotator in the corner of its interface, is not that what just about all software interfaces do to generate extra revenue? I would think that if the software needs to be used on an enterprise level, the developers would be flexible and customize another version. I have seen companies make several versions of their GUI/interface to suit various purposes.
A 35% increase year after year is significant, indeed, but how many years does that span? I am also wondering if this continued growth within this market segment is primarily due to large companies using it for meetings or can this be attributed to marketing experts and information brokers using services such as Go To Meeting to broadcast their training webinars. I wonder about this because I have seen a dramatic increase in the past few years in training webinars which are promoted heavily on social media networks.
Web conferencing is growing by leaps and bounds anymore because it is so much cheaper than traveling for business and you get the same outcome from the meeting as if you were actually there. Schools are even starting to use it for things like parent teacher conferences. Pretty soon you won’t have to leave your home for anything except shopping? Personally I agree with the comment from one of your readers when they said that Citrix and Cisco don’t really have anything to worry about just yet, I use GoToMeeting all the time and I have no complaints at all.
So it seems there is another company, Any Meeting, focusing its service on VOIP and in this instance, they are doing it by penalizing or billing a surcharge to those existing customers who do not conform to the VOIP movement. I guess this is the final phase that signifies the distancing of communications companies away from standard / traditional telephone services.
I was reading your blog and the comments below and I ran across Cindy’s comment on the VOIP movement and the surcharges and penalties they are going to start charging to those existing customers that don’t conform. Can you tell us anymore about this because this is news I have not heard before and I am extremely curious as to what this means. Any additional information would much appreciated.
So Cindy commented about Any Meeting penalizing or billing surcharges to existing customer who don’t conform to the VOIP movement. How are they going to keep any customers this way? Did the existing customers have to sign a contract that they couldn’t drop Any Meeting at any time? If I was a customer of theirs and they did that to me I wouldn’t be their customer much longer. This was a very interesting blog though and I think I will print it and take it to my business partners meeting and see what they think.
Unified communications seems to be all the rage, especially when businesses are looking to optimize productivity and reduce costs. But that terms seems generic to me. And I wondered what really is “unified communications? You might be surprised at the different answers I’ve gotten from various people. Many would simply say it is voice, video, email, and data (web) collaboration with some business processes or rules applied. At a high-level this is an accurate assessment, but not all implementations of unified communications are the same nor do they all encompass the same communication mediums. Some UC systems only work with fellow co-workers and therefore are an island onto them selves when dealing with customers who cannot participate in the unified communications platform for collaborative meetings. Maybe this trend is part of a movement to truly unify communications and grab more market share.
All this innovation and unification of communications systems is certainly improving our infrastructure and increasing how interdependent the world is. It is intriguing to think what would happen to all of this innovation once the infrastructure and societies themselves started to deteriorate as in the case of an apocalypse, or, since we are on the eve of Halloween, a zombie apocalypse. I was watching a program on the History channel, of all places, about how to survive a zombie apocalypse. Before you mock my comment, try to think of a zombie apocalypse, not as a science fiction movie, but as a pandemic or an uncontrollable spread of a deadly disease. That is how this History channel program approached it. One expert said that communication between people is key to survival and as funny as it may sound, Twitter might well be the link between survival and an apocalyptic extinction.
I thought this was a very interesting article and like you said I will be very interested to see what GoToMeeting and WebEx do. I think they will start looking for more opportunities to join forces with other companies. If they don’t do that then they will definitely have to lower their prices. Your information was put together well and I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for taking the time to put it all together, in this growing market I think it is going to be valuable to have all your ducks in a row.
The Freebinar – now known as Any Meeting, and their aggressive play for market share by providing free services with sponsor ad rotators in the GUI (graphic user interface) is a strategy very reminiscent of how Net Zero first broke onto the scene back when 56K internet speeds were still used by the majority of people with 56K modems. Speaking of 56K internet speeds, does anyone even use a 56K modem anymore? I used to subscribe to Net Zero for $9.95 per month, but I wonder, is that kind of service, that market, dead? All I hear about now days are DSl and cable modem speeds. In fact, I think these are the new 56k access. In other words, that is the norm today. Am I right or wrong?
I agree completely with Daniel where he said that he thinks that GoToMeeting and WebEx will start looking for ways to join forces with other companies, I am not them but I have a feeling that they would rather join forces or go under than have to lower their prices, well that might be a little extreme but I don’t think they are going to lower their prices anytime soon. You gave us a lot of information to digest here and these web conference meetings are getting really big in larger companies right now so if they are going to do anything they need to do it quickly.
We are going to see growth in this market by leaps and bounds as long as the economy continues to go down and the small businesses can not afford to have their employees traveling for business anymore. And not to mention it is getting to the point where the large businesses can’t afford it either. Your article is full of some great information and I hope that you continue to post more information like this as the economy continues to change so we can see what is happening.
This is some really good information; I can truly see this taking off like crazy because money is so tight right now for everybody that they have to think of ways to save money any where they can. Instead of going to meetings this way they can bring the meeting to them which will save them quite a bit of money when you think about it. Thank you for sharing this information I look forward to any new information you can offer.
I am waiting to see the day when web conferencing goes to a whole new level. Not just its use within companies, but also on the consumer level. I think there is a huge consumer market for web conferencing technology that most people are not utilizing, for whatever reasons. The technology is certainly available to most people now. So why hasn’t it become the standard for communication? Maybe what is needed for this sort of movement to take place is a company that focuses on promoting the use of web conferencing via a new software interface or some clever campaign to prod people to use existing programs like Skype or Google hangouts.
With the economy the way it is and the way it looks like it is going to remain. I expect to see another double digit increase in the next couple of years if not sooner due to the fact that people just can’t afford the simple things that they used to like travel, or hosting a guest, because then you are paying hotel fees etc. to be a good host. Web conferencing is happening in small business, large business, home business and even schools. This is a trend that I see hanging around for many years to come. Thank you for posting this information and if you hear anymore statistics please post those as well.
You can bet that we are going to see growth in this market by leaps and bounds as long as the economy continues to go down and the small businesses can not afford to have their employees traveling for business anymore. And not to mention it is getting to the point where the large businesses can’t afford it either. Web conferencing is getting huge they are even starting to use it in schools. I hope that you continue to post more information like this as the economy continues to change so we can see what is happening.
I think that the two of these companies merging makes a lot of sense, there are a lot of companies now days to compete with so I hope it works out for them. You did a great job putting this information together in a very professional manner. I hope that you will post more information on this if any comes available.
I found your advice to be top notch and the information you provided in your post was very informative and well thought out. This would definitely give Citrix and Cisco something to think about wouldn’t it. You have done an excellent job presenting this information and I look forward to many more post by you in the near future.
In all honesty I don’t see this changing any more than it has in the next couple of years because the economy isn’t getting any better, as a matter of fact, well my best guess anyway, I don’t look for any improvement in the economy until 2014 maybe, and that all depends on the people. So we may see a little more growth as far as this is concerned before it’s over, and I wouldn’t look for it to go back to the way it was.
This really was just a matter of time before this happened, it had to, it really is the only smart thing to do. People are seriously watching every dime they spend these days and they are bargain shoppers. People are going to look for the best deal and the most convenience. If it were me I would want to be the one stop shop like Wal-mart and get the business .
So in light of this information what do you think GoToMeeting and WebEx are going to do? I use GoToMeeting so I would personally like to see them lower their prices and possible offer some new features. If they were to look at partnering with someone who do you think the best fit would be? I have to admit this concerns me a bit. I appreciate all the information, please keep us informed.
Well this would definitely give companies like Citrix and Cisco something to think about. I found the information you provided in your post was very informative and well thought out. It sounds to me likr AnyMeeting and FuzeBox are going to take over the industry if these other companies don’t get with the program.
I read in a tech magazine that GoToMyPC announced that their product is now available for the two largest mobile application markets. This means their personal and pro customers can now connect to their Mac or PC hosts using their iPhone or iPod Touch, iPad, and Honeycomb Android Tablets. Supported operating systems include: iOS 4.2, and up. Also supported is the recently launched iOS 5 on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch 3rd and 4th generation, iPad – iPad 2. It’s also supported on Android Tablets. To have this technology on mobile devices is exciting.
I found your article to be very interesting and you did a great job putting the information and details together so that it made sense. I think we are going to continue to see growth in this area for quite a while and the companies that are joining forces to bring web conferencing to you at a lower price are going to be ahead of the game when the economy rebounds.
You gave us a lot of information to digest here and these web conference meetings are getting really big in larger companies right now and I think they have become affordable enough that the smaller companies are starting to do it too, so if they are going to do anything they need to do it quickly. I have a feeling that people are going to start looking for the companies that are two in one.
I agree completely with one of the commenter’s where he said that he thinks that GoToMeeting and WebEx will start looking for ways to join forces with other companies, I am pretty sure they would rather join forces than go under because others are joining together and making it available cheaper. You did a great job putting this together.
I don’t fully agree that Citrix GoToMeeting and Cisco WebEX have anything to worry about. This sort of competition has been going on forever and revenue has continued to rise. Market share may soon be a different story but if technology continues to grow I think there’s enough money to spread around. If you have a good product people are still going to purchase it even if there are others more convenient.