Fuze Meeting Pro

Fuze Meeting Pro ($69/month or $828/year) is a web conferencing service businesses should watch. After scarcely two years on the market, Fuze Meeting is the youngest?and most precocious?service I've tested. Not only can workers participate in meetings from every popular mobile platform?iOS, Android, and Blackberry?they can even host meetings from the iPad. Want audio conferencing? Fuze integrates Skype, bundles both toll and toll-free call-in numbers, and adds Fuze In, a unique lasso-style feature for dialing in tardy participants. Video conferencing? Fuze brings it to the big screen with multiple monitor support and up to 10 simultaneous H.264 camera feeds. Cloaked in a slick web interface, there's no mistaking Fuze for its competitors.

Ambition has a cost. Not only does Fuze Box charge the most?$70 a month?for its video-enabled web conferencing solution, it also expects a lot from your hardware. To join the fun, users will have to install a Fuze application on up-to-date hardware, and, once they join a conference, they'd better not expect to do anything else: All those goodies will munch up CPU cycles, leaving little appetitive for much else. If you want the best all-around package for the money, Editors' Choice pick Adobe Connect ($55/month, 4.5 stars) toasts Fuze on the value-front. But for precocious young businesses seeking a fresh web conferencing service, Fuze may light your fire.

Compatibility with Caveats
In my experience, Fuze Meeting Pro required more client-side cooperation than the other solutions. As with GoToMeeting, users are requested to install an application to participate, though Fuze asks users to take a more active role and click through a DMG installer. While it's a one-time inconvenience, the process could prove troublesome for businesses with locked-down desktops.

After the application is installed, it's easy to create or join a meeting. I initiated my test meeting via the Fuze Meeting website, which, thankfully, isn't picky about browser compatibility: I tested in three separate browsers, Internet Explorer 9, Chrome 12, and Firefox 5. That said, performance is sub-optimal: Even after I installed the dedicated application, I was disappointed with the meeting room load times (by far the longest of the group). Once inside, I tested Fuze's conferencing capabilities with the help of three colleagues, two of us on Macs (OS X Snow Leopard), two Windows (Windows 7), two of using Ethernet connections, and two connected to Wi-Fi.

Procrastinators Welcome
While Fuze employs a UI that looks a good deal different than competitors Cisco WebEx Meeting Center ($49/month, 4 stars) and Citrix GoToMeeting ($49/month, 3.5 stars), the service retains the same, straightforward scheduler (only a subject, date, and time are required) as well as a single-click "Star Now" button for tardy admins. Once the meeting is initiated you can either manually forward the e-mail invitation to participants or invite participants directly from the room.

When it comes to disseminating meetings, Fuze kindles some useful innovations. First, the service integrates with external services. As with all its competitors, Fuze integrates with Microsoft Outlook, though it takes that integration a step deeper by offering both 32- and 64-bit plugins. Additionally, with Fuze you can import contacts from a .CSV file or tap your AOL, Google, or Yahoo accounts. And spreading the word doesn't have to stop at an email invitation; the also integrates Facebook or Twitter. Finally, just as "Start Now" makes it easy for tardy organizers to start in a snap, "Fuze In" lets organizers lasso late attendees by dialing them into the service. It's a one-of-a-kind feature ideal for a hectic office.

Feature Firestorm
If Adobe Connect is the feature frontrunner, Fuze Meeting is a wunderkind, equipped with tech to make millennials salivate. First, Fuze doesn't care how you join a meeting. iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry?they're all welcome with dedicated apps easily retrievable from a "Companion Applications" section of your meeting space. Organization is a bit peculiar (e.g. the list of mobile apps and plugins is neither alphabetical nor categorical), but I commend Fuze for making it easy to personalize service without leaving the room.

In terms of design, the site borrows some of the best elements of WebEx and GoToMeeting, including collapsible modules and a tabbed-based interface, but goes a step further: Thanks to its support for multiple monitors, Fuze lets you pop-out particular modules and move them to other displays. While it lacks the customizability of Connect's pods and layouts, the target audience?a younger, smaller business?may not care.

Fuze embraces the DropBox model, coaxing users to upload as many files as they please to be repurpose for as many meetings as they schedule. Those files can include videos, for which Fuze supports both playbook and, like Adobe Connect, annotations (they show in the scrub bar). As with all the other web conferencing options, Fuze supports desktop and application sharing, whiteboards, and notes, not to mention a snazzy virtual laser pointer (Fuze calls it the "iPointer").

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/fv1ThzpP3Mo/0,2817,2388117,00.asp

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