As web conferencing connoisseurs, we have watched with guarded interest as Web conferencing vendors have striven to integrate audio, over the telephone or the Internet. We were a little surprised, therefore, to learn that an audio conferencing leader – Genesys Conferencing – might have come the closest to truly combining audio and web conferencing in a single platform. Announced last October, the Genesys Meeting Center builds upon the solid collaboration technology Genesys received when it acquired Astound about a year ago. Most interestingly, Genesys is practically giving the web conferencing portion away.

At first glance, the Genesys Meeting Center appears comparable to other leading Web conferencing platforms. You can easily share presentation slides, Web sites, and a white board. You can demonstrate and share applications. Audience members can chat with themselves and presenters, or click on icons to give feedback to the presenters.

In this view of the participant console, we can see how the controls are all organized neatly along the left panel while content (in this case, application sharing) appears in the right window.

But look deeper, and you find that the technology has some unexpected advantages. With its Astound heritage, the Genesys Meeting Center is one of the few that maintains slide animations and transitions from PowerPoint (and Astound) presentations. It does so by converting the content into DHTML, which should be compatible with most firewalls. Also, the platform tracks and displays how quickly participants are receiving information, so presenters know when the audience can see it (individually or as a % of the total group). The presenter can even resize the images on the fly, to accommodate participants on lower-resolution monitors.

The presenter has a variety of other tools for managing meetings and enabling participants. Two windows allow her to capture and display meeting minutes and action items. She can open a third "notepad" window that each participant can use for his/her own notes. She can transfer files on the fly to participants.

Genesys also offers a very flexible survey feature not found on most leading platforms. You can create multi-question surveys before meetings or on the fly, and deliver them to participants before meetings, during meetings, or at the end of meetings – even attached to an invitation to a meeting. You have the choice of several question types, from yes/no to multiple choice. The surveys are especially important since Genesys doesn't track the individual responses to its polling questions.

Event scheduling and invitations are well integrated and easy to follow. You can upload content and surveys when you schedule a meeting, or at any time before or during a meeting. You'll find check boxes for sending invitations and reminder e-mails. You can customize the invitations and select passwords for your meetings.

Returning to the Web-audio convergence, users of Genesys Meeting Center find all their audio and Web conferencing controls neatly integrated in one UI. During meetings, it may be or "makes it" easier to monitor and manage participants. It's easy to monitor participants, mute and unmute audio lines, or move participants to a subconference as you present to them. But having a single source is probably most convenient for support and billing. If you also perform a lot of teleconferencing, you can combine your usage for greater volume discounts.

Learn about the latest updates added to Genesys Meeting Center