(Credit:
Microsoft Corporation)
Microsoft is hard at work on a new consumer-targeted screen-sharing and collaboration tool, code-named Tahiti. Microsoft's landing page describes it as an "easy way to share documents and screen views with small groups of friends or coworkers; anytime, anywhere."
Each group member is assigned a mouse pointer and an editing color when working the group works together on Office documents. There's also a feature called 'handouts,' which is a storage space for documents or files you want to share with the group. The tool has no integrated voice or chat features, but Microsoft will likely add Windows Live Messenger support to future builds.
This is a step in the right direction for Microsoft, although it's a little confusing as the company already has three separate group collaboration applications: Net Meeting, Windows Meeting Space, and Groove Virtual Office. (We'll admit that Groove, priced at $200, isn't exactly casual and consumer-friendly).
There's also some competition brewing in this space on the Web side of things, as we saw at the Under the Radar conference last week. Competitors like Yugma (previous coverage), offer nearly all these features (in some cases more), and have Mac support, too.
There's no news on how much Tahiti will cost, or when it will be released.
[via ZDNet]
Zoho, makers of more than a dozen office and productivity tools, have announced a new meeting app called Zoho Meeting. It's currently in private beta and will be available to all Zoho users next month.
Zoho Meeting is screen-sharing without the need to install an application, as we've seen with Vyew, Yugma, and others. It also integrates Zoho Chat, allowing participants to talk without the need for a separate phone solution, although an integrated VoIP solution is said to be coming soon. What may be the standout feature is the ability to record, save, and share meetings for free. This opens up a wide range of uses for the tool, especially in the field of education and training tools for small groups. Just because somebody can't make the meeting doesn't mean they have to miss it or spend time having it relayed, wasting someone else's time.
Zoho meeting has integration with other Zoho apps. In particular, Zoho Show (previous coverage) has added a new type of slide that automatically launches a Zoho Meeting within the presentation. There's no need to open a separate window, it just starts up. Likewise, users will be able to embed their Zoho meetings on blogs and Web sites, which can be handy if you intend on creating Web archives of meeting notes or demonstrations. There's a whole lot of potential here.
Zoho will be one of the many presenters at tomorrow's Under the Radar Office 2.0 event. Stay tuned for a hands-on and live coverage. In the meantime, Zoho has put together a three-minute overview, which I've embedded below.
Earlier this week we checked out Buddy Shopping, a collaborative Web browsing tool for shoppers. And today we got word of Yugma, a more general-purpose screen-sharing product. Best of all, it's free and cross-platform. Yugma runs in Java and acts almost like an app outside of the browser.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
In Yugma, drivers and passengers can trade place at will--you can swap which desktop is in view. There also are some basic drawing tools, so you can doodle on the screen. (But for serious design review work, you might want a specialized tool like ConceptShare)
Like other screen-sharing and presentation products, Yugma sets up a meeting room of sorts, with a chat box. The messaging isn't quite instant, as there's a second or so delay. Considering how much information is being exchanged, this is acceptable, but the delay could increase with additional users.
Yugma has four different tiers of service, with the free version still being pretty generous at 10 attendees. The paid versions add access for more users at once and business-centric options like networked storage, scheduling, and keyboard and mouse sharing for attendees. Yugma may work as a voice conference tool in the future, although in the current version this function is disabled. The developers apparently are "revamping" voice conferencing, but Skype and Google Talk (or the phone) can still be used in the background.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
The one thing we like about this service is the Widget creation tool. You can create about a dozen various buttons to insert into e-mails, Web pages or e-mail signatures. Clicking it will take you to the user-specific conference joining page. This is much easier than sending people to a URL or having to give them log-in instructions.
There are many similar Web conferencing options out there (see Vyew and Unyte), but Yugma offers several levels of service for business users, and Widgets to simplify the joining process. The user interface and the desktop "swap" tool both are implemented very well. You know it's a good app when you don't need to think about how to use it, and Yugma does just that.
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