We have completed the end-user survey that we discussed in one of last week's newsletters. Here are a couple of other findings from the research (if you’d like a copy of the report, please send me an e-mail and we would be happy to send it to you):

* During the past year, most users have used one or more Web conferencing tools to participate in meetings that others have initiated.

* Most users have also used one or more Web conferencing tools to initiate meetings with others.

* In both cases, users in enterprises are more likely to participate in Web conferencing sessions than users in small and midsized organizations. For example, 85% of enterprise users have participated in a Web conference during the past year, while 66% of users in smaller organizations have done so.

* We also asked about the use of social networking tools, consumer instant messaging (IM) and enterprise-grade IM in this survey – Web conferencing tools are more commonly used than all of these.

The use of Web conferencing has a few key drivers, not least of which is the growing number of Webinars that vendors, analysts and others are offering. Citrix, WebEx, Microsoft, IBM, ReadyTalk, ON24 and a variety of other vendors offer good Web conferencing platforms that are helping to spur use of real-time communications capabilities. Add to this the fact that IBM Lotus Sametime has 20 million users (and another 100 million Sametime-enable users through Notes) and Microsoft Office Communications Server has at least 10 million clients deployed.

The bottom line is that Web conferencing tools are commonly used for broadcast types of communications, such as Webinars, but will be increasingly used for one-to-one and one-to-few communications for events like ad hoc meetings or sales calls. A slowing economy will make these tools even more attractive given that they can reduce travel requirements significantly.

Michael Osterman is principal analyst of Osterman Research.