Free WebEx

It never ceases to amaze me what one can get for free on the Internet.  Today a colleague, Tom Stuart of BeFiled, asked me what would be a free alternative to a web conferencing service such as WebEx.  I had come across one in the past, but couldn’t recall the name.  A quick Google search yielded these two names: Dimdim, and Yugma.

In the small world department (and in the spirit of full disclosure), it turns out that Dimdim has as investors and board members two guys I know: Naren Gupta, and Howard Hartenbaum.  The point is, there are some very high quality people involved (both investors and management team) and some capital investment in place, so this is not a fly-by-night company.  Dimdim offers:

• Dimdim Free for up to 20 attendees at no charge
• Dimdim Pro for up to 50 attendees (and including Pro features such as enhanced performance) at $19/month
• Dimdim Enterprise for up to 1000 attendees at pricing “1/3 the cost of other guys” (read: WebEx)

I don’t know the people involved with Yugma, but I have to say that the company appears very polished judging from its web site and rich product features.  To the latter point, one cool feature (which is totally free to use, whether or not you are a Yugma customer) is Yugma SE (Skype Edition) which claims to enable instant desktop sharing and collaboration via Skype.  In terms of its mainstream, WebEx-competitor product, Yugma offers two packages:

• Yugma Free for up to 20 attendees at no charge (includes a 15-day trial of Yugma Pro, just so you can see what you’re missing)
• Yugma Pro for up to 500 attendees at an undisclosed price (again, you get a 15-day trial, and I’m sure that the sales department would be more than happy to get you a price quote!)

I haven’t had a chance yet to try out either of these products; if you have, please comment and tell us what you think!

Free WebEx, who woulda thunk it?

Tagged as: collaboration, dimdim, free stuff, Web Conferencing, webex, yugma