Last week I had a product demonstrated to me from The Dot Net Factory (they have several products, all of which look interesting to me and I hope to blog some more about them soon) but as they are in Ohio (USA) and I am in the UK the demonstration was carried out across the Internet.
Apart from the products that were being demonstrated, one of the things that impressed me was how easy it was to join their web meeting – hosted by the guys at GoToMeeting – part of Citrix online. Citrix also have GoToAssist and GoToMyPC products but from the point of view of an end-user with limited time to spare, I was amazed at how easy it was to click on a link and (after installing a small ActiveX component) view the meeting host’s PC. We didn’t use the voice facilities as The Dot Net Factory called me on my mobile phone but GoToMeeting was definitely good from the point of view of seeing the system that the guys were talking to me about and I’d certainly recommend it for hosting meetings across the Internet.
I also saw a unique product by GoLinkUp.com. I was in a presentation where I had to view desktops from multiple locations. Their clarify was superb compared to some of the encumbants. What I think they have done is consolidated gotomypc, gotomeeting, gotoassist and remote application access along with all the tools like IM, audio, video, file sharing etc. And all that with a single click and a quick auto setup. I was impressed. Too bad some of these smaller visionaries aren’t getting the press.