WebEx Turns Training into Cash

WebEx Communications Inc. has launched a new version of its Web conferencing service for e-learning with a focus on helping companies make money from offering training.

The newest WebEx Training Center, released on Monday, integrates e-commerce capabilities into the service so companies can charge attendees to take a training course or charge back a department within an enterprise for training, said Sanjay Dalal, director of WebEx Training Center.

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The service supports credit card payments, in a partnership with VeriSign Inc., as well as the use of online coupons and employee or customer account numbers, Dalal said.

"You can look at running training as a business," he said.

WebEx Training Center is one of the San Jose, Calif.-based companys targeted services for specific uses of online meetings. The others focus on holding large marketing events and conducting online support. Training Center is tailored to both live training courses as well as on-demand e-learning.

Click here to read more about WebExs updates last year of its main Meeting Center service.

Beyond the e-commerce features, the latest release adds cross-platform support beyond Microsoft Windows for the Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris operating systems. It also provides the ability to connect meeting attendees to a corporate computer lab both during a live event and during an on-demand session.

Other new features in WebEx Training Center include greater multilingual support and enhancements to the services reporting and tracking capabilities such as testing and measuring a training courses effectiveness.

Pricing for WebEx Training Center starts at $225 per concurrent port for unlimited monthly usage or 40 cents per minute, Dalal said.

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