Web Conferencing Company

To be sure, the Internet has paved the way for the opening of various avenues in handling corporate concerns, least of which is the business meeting. With the cost of travel and hotel accommodations these days, companies are expressing their concerns over the budget for offsite meetings. To help solve the issue, the web conferencing company offers its services.

Conferencing software, when speaking about the service offered by many a web conferencing company, is used to hold group meetings or live presentations over the Internet. It is a form of discussion that is held in a wholly web-based environment. Often, the web conferencing company offers to host the server on which the conference is going to take place. However, there are those few that offer their services in the form of program applications which can be purchased or downloaded on the Internet and installed on corporate intranets.

Before web conferencing company services became general practice, the terms “web conferencing” and “computer conferencing” used to mean group discussions conducted within a message board via posted text messages. Later on, though, the term began to evolve so that it ceased to refer to mere text messages but specifically to “live” or “synchronous” meetings conducted via the Internet. Posted text messages on the other hand came to be known as forums, message boards, or bulletin boards.

The History of Web Conferencing Company Service

For all intents and purposes, web conferencing company services sparked to life with the introduction of real-time text chat facilities, such as IRC (Internet Relay Chat). And with the further introduction of web-based chat and instant messaging software in mid-1990s, it looked as though the Internet’s ties with web conferencing company services were decidedly set. But it wasn’t until late 1990s that the first ever web conferencing company software came to be.

Microsoft’s NetMeeting was the first true web conferencing company application. During its early days, it was a free download, using peer-to-peer communication in order to facilitate an exchange data and file sharing.

Web conferencing company programs took a more commercial turn with WebEx’s lead in 1996. Its product was more decidedly more robust compared to Microsoft’s NetMeeting, thus making its mark in the commercial web conferencing company market. For Linux desktops, Workspot introduced alive desktop-sharing service in 1999 which was based on Virtual Network Computing.

With the initial successes of web conferencing company such as WebEx, dozens of other vendors have since entered the conferencing market. These include Placeware, Genesys, IBM, Macromedia, Raindance, Centra, WebDialogs, Intercall, iLinc, WiredRed, Linktivity, Citrix Online, and many others. In 2003, Microsoft acquired Placeware and renamed it Microsoft Live Meeting, phasing out support for NetMeeting.