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WebDialogs is getting out of the backroom and putting itself directly in front of customers with its Meeting Central Web conferencing offering announced this week that features both audio and Web-based application and presentation sharing bundled together for around 10 cents per minute per participant.
Previously, the company sold its technology to other manufacturers for inclusion in products such as Nortel's MCS5100 multimedia conferencing server or to service providers such as SBC, which markets the WebDialogs product as ConferenceNow. It never sold directly to consumers. Now the company is targeting small and midsize businesses with three levels of service: Express, Executive, and Enterprise.
Express is a pre-paid, reservationless service that costs 10 cents per minute per user and can be paid with a credit card account. Executive offers a higher level of service including operator assistance and is priced at 15 cents per minute per user. Enterprise is a Web-only offering targeted at customers that already have an audio conferencing provider in place. It's pricing per minute varies.
"We want to sell Meeting Central as communication service, not an enterprise application," says Lou Guercia, president, CEO and director of Billerica, Massachusetts-based WebDialogs. "The key is we've got to price it around what people are paying for audio-only conferencing and it has got to be a feature, like what three-way calling is to a PBX. It just needs to be there and run well."
Audio, Video Available
All three offer the customer both bridged audio calling and the typical Web conferencing options such as presentation mode, application sharing, and the ability to remotely control a participant's desktop. Neither the participants nor the presenter need to download any applications to use the service. Optionally, calls and data can be recorded and downloaded as a Flash file for use anywhere. Recording costs an extra $1.50 per minute, but there are no charges for each listener thereafter.
"What is very interesting is that they offer both [audio and Web] as a bundled service--not just audio, but the idea of a multimedia minute," says Andrew Nilssen, a senior analyst at Wainhouse Research in Brookline, Massachusetts. "It's interesting too what they're doing with the price points for audio and Web."
WebDialogs competes with the likes of WebEx, Genesys, NetSpoke, Microsoft Live Office, and many other smaller players in the Web conferencing space.
