I suppose the web-conferencing space deserves some disrupting. WebEx is now up on Mt. Olympus with the other Cisco gods, NetMeeting is a Microsoft-centric creation, and Citrix’s GoToMeeting has its fans and haters There are other players with niches in webcasting for corporate clients, but what about simple and low-cost web presentation for small bizness? Silicon Alley startup SalesCrunch has a credible product that may count as a kick-in-the-widgets to some of these larger players.
I haven’t seen too many corporatey web collaboration tools in all the demos, pitches, and other startup events I’ve witnessed. It’s a market that scares away all but the bravest of investors. I guestimate that WebEx and GoToMeeting has several million subscribers between them. And Microsoft NetMeeting is on more than a few desktops.
One slide in my awesome presentation.
Along comes SalesCrunch, which first made its way into some people’s neocortex early last year when its CEO Sean Black got on the wrong side of a tech publication, also with the word crunch in its name.
Anyway, I received a press release announcing that SalesCrunch has slashed monthly charges for its web presentation software, known as CrunchConnect.Their basic plan–up to 10 invitees–is now $9, formerly $39. They also have a free service that’s limited to a party of two, you and the other guy.
I tried SalesCrunch. For a company that, according to Black, “never intended to get into the online meeting space”, they’ve not done too badly for themselves. When reviewing similar services earlier in the last decade for a legal tech publication–don’t ask–I discovered that most of them were sluggish Java-based bears that you poked at your own risk.
CrunchConnect is different. It digested and rendered my short deck of PowerPoint slide for web viewing quickly enough. That could take awhile in the old days. I then brought up a host session that gives presenters the power to send email invites directly from the console. This is perfect for on-the-fly sales meeting or any other ad hoc collaborative exercise.
One of the differentiators of CrunchConnect is that as an HTML5-JavaScript creature, there’s no need to download native apps or deal with applets. As the host, I speedily brought up my session on a FireFox browser running on my MacBook Pro. For kicks, I the tried to see if I could collaborate with another mythical attendee on my iPad. This inter-device test worked fine, and now I love my iPad even more.
fyi: I did receive a message that my iPad’s Safari browser wasn’t fully supported, so I decided not to try to pass presenter control to it.
I also ran a test using my dusty Dell antique, which is still running XP. No problems.
CrunchConnect’s slide transitions were crisp, and the voice conferencing bridge worked without a hitch. I have no complaints.
Repeat with me: it’s a good time to be a small business. There’s so much solid cloud-based biz-oriented goodies, that you can get started with only a minimal investment in infrastructure. CrunchConnect is another example of good inexpensive SMB software.
CrunchConnect also has an integration with LinkedIn, allowing invitees to see each others profile pictures and job titles.