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The components
ProShare Conferencing Video System 200
Multimedia Conference Server 2007 (MCS)
So, is videoconferencing worth the price and the trouble? We were looking to answer that question, among others, when we developed the test plan for this comparison, leading us to pit a single ISDN-based videoconferencing package against two other collaboration tools that share data but not pictures and sound. (NetMeeting, of course, offers AV options, but we expected that the performance of these features wouldn't be up to corporate standards.)
If you've already seen the scores, you know that the short answer to our question is no: The combination of Intel's ProShare and VideoServer's MCS finished third out of three. We feel a little heartless saying it finished"last" though. The ISDN videoconferencing solution wasn't that far behind the others, and it delivered a stronger showing than we expected.
Why were our expectations low? Our heart-to-hearts with IS staff who had implemented conferencing tools confirmed what the cold data of market research had already told us: Other than for training, most of the benefits of virtual meetings come from data collaboration (primarily application sharing and whiteboarding), not from videoconferencing. In the majority of corporate settings, the benefits of video are just too marginal and intangible to justify You're not so tough
What made the ISDN videoconferencing solution's score respectable may surprise you. Although configuration and administration isn't a cakewalk, it's nothing an experienced administrator (or a freshly trained one) can't handle. The setup of this solution was slightly more difficult than...