Cross-platform virtual meetings

[Charles Jones]

I installed and tested out Google Openmeetings today. It does work, but 
not near as slick as other browser based collaboration tools like WebEx, 
MeetingPlace, etc. But those other ones are not free either :)  It feels 
very beta-ish, and some of the UI is a bit confusing. One of my testers 
immediately noticed that it has issues with .docx files (when you upload 
files it basically uses OpenOffice on the backend to open and convert 
the docs). Could still get around this by using the desktop sharing, or 
just not using darn .docx files :) I do like how participants can 
download the files in their native format or download a PDF version.

The audio quality was excellent, and video quality was okay, except the 
desktop sharing, which basically just takes a snapshot every 2 seconds, 
so no fluid refresh like you would be expecting.

I may do some more testing to see how much bandwidth it uses when there 
are say 4 people in a conference.