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Scorecard and Net Results

By Christine Perey
Network World, 01/21/02

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QoS service providers
Internet-based service providers

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QoS service providers WireOne Glowpoint InView IP Videoconferencing Services 4.7 Rating Company: WireOne, (888) 521-4569, www.wireone.com Price: Starts at $200 per month, per endpoint, plus installation fee. Pros: Rapid and professional installation/provisioning; excellent video and audio quality; standards-based equipment; integrated access and services package. Cons: Bandwidth cannot be used for applications other than H.323 videoconferencing; no data collaboration features.   3.8 Rating Company: InView, (888) 283-1223, www.inview.net Price: Starts at $100 per month, per user without network services, or $350 per month, per user for 10 hours of services. Pros: Flexible converged network architecture; excellent video and audio quality.Cons: Gateway calls can only be made via multipoint conferencing unit; integration between backbone service provider and video application service provider needs work.

WireOne InView WAN management features 30% 4 3 Videoconferencing features 25% 5 5 Provisioning experience 20% 5 3 Data collaboration support 10% 5 5 Gateway services support 10% 5 3 TOTAL SCORE 4.7 3.8

Individual category scores are based on a scale of 1 to 5. Percentages are the weight given each category in determining the total score. Scoring Key: 5: Exceptional showing in this category. Defines the standard of excellence; 4: Very good showing. Although there may be room for improvement, this product was much better than the average; 3: Average showing in this category. Product was neither especially good nor exceptionally bad; 2: Below average. Lacked some features or lower performance than other products or than expected; 1: Consistently subpar, or lacking features being reviewed.

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Internet-based service providers 4.3 Rating Reality Fusion SeeSaw Distance Meetings 3.7 Rating Eyeball Video Communicator Company: Reality Fusion, (831) 420-0520, www.realityfusion.com Price: $0.30 per minute, per connection. Pros: Extensive Web portal for account establishment and manage-ment, including many features for network managers; supports up to 150 users in one meeting; client graphical user interface attractive and highly functional; excellent audio and video quality, all tuned via SeeSaw Collaborator wizard; icons well designed for large group interactions. Cons: Connection establishment time frequently exceeded user patience (equal to or longer than 5 seconds); no data collaboration features; point-to-point session cannot be converted to multipoint. Company: Eyeball Networks, (604) 921-5993, www.eyeball.com Price: Price: Starts at $2,600 per year for five users in point-to-point or group communications. Pros: Audio and video quality sufficient for business meetings; well-integrated persistent chat application; rapid connection; easy to customize layout of windows on desktop. Cons: Lack of Web portal management of the service and accounts; services available at the time of this study designed more for consumer, not corporate applications.   3.3 Rating FVC CUseeMe World 2.4 Rating FocusFocus Meeting Company: First Virtual Corp., (408) 567-7200, www.fvc.com Price: Client is available for purchase via download or on CD-ROM; service is free. Pros: Widely deployed client and reflectors; good for getting your feet wet in videoconferencing. Cons: Features more appro-priate for consumer than business applications. Company: FocusFocus, (818) 346-4200, www.focusfocus.com Price: $50 per month, per user; minimum of two seats. Pros: Tightly integrated chat and full-feature proprietary companion application for application sharing and synchronized Web browsing; easily added to any HTML page using one line of code; client very small and installs easily. Cons: Video quality and audio quality substandard, even with unlimited bandwidth on the last mile; firewall changes may be required for application to reach outside enterprise network; unattractive user interface.

Reality Fusion Eyeball  FVC  FocusFocus WAN management features 30% 5 1 1 1 Videoconferencing features 25% 5 5 5 3 Software client features 20% 4 5 5 3 Data collaboration support 10% 1 5 1 4 Worthiness of usage for enterprise10% 4 4 4 2 TOTAL SCORE 4.3 3.7 3.3 2.4

Individual category scores are based on a scale of 1 to 5. Percentages are the weight given each category in determining the total score. Scoring Key: 5: Exceptional showing in this category. Defines the standard of excellence; 4: Very good showing. Although there may be room for improvement, this product was much better than the average; 3: Average showing in this category. Product was neither especially good nor exceptionally bad; 2: Below average. Lacked some features or lower performance than other products or than expected; 1: Consistently subpar, or lacking features being reviewed.

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