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Turning its attention to small- and mid-sized businesses, Macromedia Inc. on Tuesday introduced new monthly hosted and licensing plans for its web conferencing software.
Macromedia, of San Francisco, launched two monthly pricing options for its Breeze Live Web conferencing software that is targeted to companies that want alternatives to annual hosting plans and traditional enterprise licensing.
The first is a pay-per-use model based on the number of minutes used across all participants in Breeze Live meetings. The other option is a monthly hosted plan, where a business can choose either a 5- or 10- seat concurrent license for unlimited monthly use.
Macromedia, which entered the Web-conferencing market late last year, decided to expand its pricing options following demand from smaller businesses and corporate departments for plans aimed at smaller deployments and where they could try Breeze, said Kevin M. Lynch, Macromedias vice president of e-learning and collaboration.
“There was overwhelming demand for this,” Lynch said. “When we just had an annual subscription and a licensed software option, our sales force too often had to say that there was no way to get into [Web conferencing} for a small-business customer.”
Macromedias stable of graphic- and Web-design customers, for example, might use Web conferencing occasionally for showing project prototypes, but only want to pay for the actual use of the Breeze Live service, Lynch said.
Macromedia isnt alone in experimenting with new Web conferencing licensing and hosting options. Microsoft Corp. last month introduced three new subscription plans for its Office Live Meeting Web conferencing service.
The pay-per-use plan for Breeze Live starts at 32 cents per minute, while the hosted monthly option starts at $375 a month for 5 concurrent seat and $750 a month fro 10 concurrent seats.
With both plans, Macromedia allows meeting rooms created on Breeze Live to stay accessible for as long as 90 days so participants can join a previous meeting where they left off or to hold regular Web conferences such as sales meetings, Lynch said.
Other Web conferencing news:
- Sonexis Inc. last week introduced two new service offerings for its integrated Web and audio conferencing system.
The Tewksbury, Mass., company launched Sonexis ConferenceConnect as a hosted Web and audio conferencing service for both small, on-demand meetings as well as large events with as many as 1,000 participants.
At the same time, Sonexis announced a managed service option for its ConferenceManager enterprise conferencing system. Called ConferenceManager Plus, the service offers small- and mid-sized businesses with the option of having the conferencing equipment on premise or hosted by Sonexis. Sonexis, in both cases, handles the systems administration and network provisioning.
ConferenceConnect is available now, while ConferenceManager Plus will be available later this month.
- Netspoke last week launched a series of new features for its Netspoke Conferencing service to allow users to integrate video into Web and audio meetings and to record and playback sessions.
Also added were features to invite additional attendees during a live conference and to transfer files during a meeting to other participants, the Woburn, Mass., company announced.
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