Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Fuze Meeting for iPad 2 Just Works

FuzeBox launched new iPad and Android apps for Fuze Meetingtoday, enabling multi-party HD video conferencing from virtually anywhere. With these new apps, Fuze Meeting makes a compelling business case as a cost-effective, cross-platform conferencing solution.

If you have turned on the news in the last...oh, six months or so, you might notice that travel can be perilous. You have blizzards grounding airplanes in the entire northeast United States, political unrest and rebellion throughout the Middle East and Africa, and earthquakes, tsunamis, and potential nuclear meltdowns in Japan. Even if none of those factors existed, travel is expensive and in most cases does not provide enough value to justify the cost.
On the other hand, online conferences are complex and glitch. I can't even count the number of times I have been a participant in an online whiteboard or video conferencing session where we were forced to spend the first half of the allotted meeting time just troubleshooting issues and trying to get connected so we could start the meeting. That effort was then rewarded with intolerable lag and glitchy performance that made us all wish we hadn't bothered. Scenarios like that are frustrating and counter-productive.
To be fair, video conferencing technologies in general have improved over time, and the more ubiquitous availability of high-speed broadband connections also makes the prospect of video conferencing more attainable. But, I still generally find that I have to join a meeting five or ten minutes ahead of time to make sure I have the right client software installed and that I am prepared to join the meeting without holding things up.
So, imagine my surprise when I turned on the iPad 2 ten minutes ahead of my scheduled Fuze Meeting demo with the FuzeBox team and found that I was connected in a matter of seconds without having to jump through a bunch of hoops. FuzeBox product manager Greg Saiz had apparently encountered similar skepticism from previous demos, so he was already online waiting for me.
Saiz walked me through the various features of Fuze Meeting, and I was impressed throughout with the quality and clarity of the video. We were joined by a couple other FuzeBox team members, and I connected simultaneously from both the iPad 2, and my Windows 7 PC. There was one issue with my Windows 7 PC which was related to my out-of-date Nvidia driver, and the sound quality of the headset that Saiz was using from his home office left a little something to be desired, but those two issues aside the meeting was flawless.
Fuze Meeting offers a video conferencing solution that bridges all major platforms--both Windows and Mac OS X PCs, as well as iOS and Android mobile devices, and it can deliver high quality video over either Wi-Fi or 3G cellular networks. Best of all, Fuze Meeting minimizes the need for IT support because it just works.
Fuze Meeting has a variety of compelling features and capabilities, but one of the traits that stands out the most for the FuzeBox video conferencing solution is cost. You can meet with peers, partners, and customers from the safety of your office desk, or your living room, or the local coffee shop. You can save oodles of money on airfare, hotels, meals, rental cars, and other travel expenses. And, you can do it all for--as one customer told FuzeBox CEO Jeff Cavins--less than your company spends on paperclips in a year.
Of course, your mileage on that analogy may vary depending on the size of your company and how much it relies on paper clips. The bottom line is that Fuze Meeting is a cost-effective, cross-platform video conferencing solution that is simple to use. If you are looking for a video conferencing solution, make sure you take a look at Fuze Meeting.

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