The new version of Microsoft’s Live Meeting (former Placeware product) was recently launched, and according to Ken Molay (The Webinar Blog: Live Meeting MWA Still A Mystery) and others, the release may be a step backwards towards thick-client experiences.
I’m actually pretty surprised by this.† In my experience with web conferencing over the past five years, one of the most common complaints I’ve heard from other vendor’s users has been the work vendors put their end-users through just to participate in a meeting.† If your end-users are spending 15 minutes or so just trying to join the web conference, there’s a significant drop-off in productivity.† Imagine it taking 15 minutes to open the door to a conference room…
So, did Microsoft just get it wrong?† Did they avoid talking to customers for the past five years?† I don’t think it’s that extreme, but I do believe we’re seeing the results of Microsoft’s decision a few years ago to focus on Office Communication Server vs. the old Placeware service.† With a focus on a server-based solution and associated thick client to be deployed on-premise, it is not surprising to see client requirements that will be more successful in controlled desktop environments vs. the cross-firewall use-cases that drive so much of our customers web communication experiences.
How have we judged success in the past?† We know we’ve built a great user experience when end-users are inside our meeting room just seconds after browsing to a URL.† It’s not uncommon for us to have to explain they are already in the room vs. expecting to install some software before they can participate.† For web conferencing to be adopted on a broad basis, this level of simplicity is required.
The QuickConnect Dashboard gives you all kinds of useful information about your Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional installation, including enhanced reporting, and advance notification of scheduled maintenance and upgrades. You can even change the time of scheduled maintenance yourself — the Dashboard puts you in control.
But today I want to say a few words about remote monitoring. In the Dashboard live system view, remote monitoring appears as a single green sphere (or a red sphere, in the unlikely event that monitoring is down). In fact, we use multiple remote monitoring points, distributed across multiple countries, to monitor your Adobe Acrobat Connect instance. Every 60-90 seconds, each monitor requests current system status from your Connect instance (using the so-called "testbuilder" API) .
We do two things with this monitoring data. First, if ever your Connect instance is unvailable from any of the remote monitoring sites, our support and IT staff are notified immediately, so that they take corrective action. Second, we store this data in a central database, so that we can identify trends and correlations over time.
The remote monitor installs as a service on Windows or Linux/Unix, and you have the option to install it locally, so that we can monitor your Adobe Acrobat Connect instance from your site as well.
The markets outside of North America make up about 30% of the annual investments in web conferencing technology, according to a variety of analysts.† Based on the past two days of MeetingPulse registrations, it’s safe to say we just had most of that 30% download and register MeetingPulse.† A large number of Acrobat Connect Professional users have registered for MeetingPulse from Australia and New Zealand, so greetings and we hope you are enjoying the application.
With these registrations, we’ve blown past 150 registered users of MeetingPulse in just a few weeks of this beta.† Please keep the suggestions coming as we continue to iterate…
A special thanks goes out to Kevan Williams over at University of Central Lancashire (http://uclan.ac.uk), who is an active MeetingPulse user and source of a number of great enhancements, including this helpful tip!
MeetingPulse was designed to provide desktop-access to Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, enabling meeting monitoring and immediate access to meetings, content, administration, etcÖ The application succeeds in these objectives, but thereís one obstacle: you have to remember to run the application!
Thereís a very easy way to ensure MeetingPulse is always running. You simply need to add a MeetingPulse shortcut to your ìstartupî folder in Windows (usually found at: C:\Documents and Settings\(user)\Start Menu\Programs\Startup) or add a ìLogin Itemsî entry for your Mac (under System Preferences). Once youíve done this, MeetingPulse will launch each time you login to your computer. If youíve also selected the ìauto-loginî feature in MeetingPulse, than the application takes care of the rest for you.
As we’ve noted in previous posts, the users of MeetingPulse represent a fairly diverse set of organizations across the globe. We’d like to learn more about how you are using Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, so please take a moment to fill out this poll:
{democracy:2}
We’ve just released a new version of MeetingPulse. The number one feature request from the beginning has been pop-up notifications when a user enters your meeting. The previous version of MeetingPulse played a sound when this happened, but until now Adobe Air did not fully support the native window notifications that were necessary for pop-up notifcations.
But the new beta version of Air released today makes it all possible. Once you’ve installed the latest version of MeetingPulse from http://labs.connectsolutions.com, you’ll get a pop-up notification whenever someone enters your meeting. MeetingPulse can be minimized in the background; you’ll still see the notification. The notification includes the name of the person entering your meeting, and a link that lets you join them immediately (or ignore them, if you prefer). Of course, you can turn the notifications off if you like (there’s a checkbox under the meeting listing for that).
There was a dramatic upswing in MeetingPulse downloads and registrations this past week. I encourage you to check out the new version, and to use the support email-link under the “Administration” tab to send in your feature requests.
It’s going to be a busy week of announcements from Adobe, with the MAX 2007 conference beginning today.† One of the items we have been anxious for is the general availability of AIR Beta 2, which has some capabilities our MeetingPulse community of users have asked for.† We’ll have a new version of MeetingPulse available shortly, so stay tuned.
Adobe Labs – Downloads: Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)
