Microsoft Opens Up Live Meeting Options

Added to the mix are new named-user and conference room models. In the former, companies pay for individuals who then can have as many meetings as they want with up to 15 participants, according to Jennifer Callison, director of product management. Pricing starts at $180 per person for the standard edition or $300 per person for the professional edition which adds application sharing, handouts and recordings to the mix.

The limited-room model for 15 meetings per month starts at $200 per seat per year. An unlimited option covers as many meetings as needed and starts at $600 per seat per year.

Finally, a new monthly minutes option will let users sign up for a block of time each month and get higher discounts the more they use the service. Callison likened this to a cell phone usage plan minus the penalties for overuse.

Microsoft also said that Live Meeting subscriptions now fall under its volume licensing plans, so volume discounts apply based on total money spent on Microsoft software.

Before now, Microsoft offered a shared-seat option, where a company paid for whatever number of users, and could fill those seats as needed up to the limit. And companies could pay by the minute for each participant. The new monthly minutes plan expands on that model.

Microsoft is also working to add RingCam support to LiveMeeting, although Callison would not comment on timing or pricing. RingCam is a prototype conference-room camera that pivots and to show all participants in a room to their colleagues on the Web.

Over time, the company is also weighing an on-premises edition of Live Meeting. "The analogy is to the telephone system, where some large companies deploy their own PBXes internally and connect to a broader network," Callison noted. Right now, no Live Meeting customers host their own system, she said.

As reported earlier by CRN, Microsoft is also working to foster better interoperability between Live Meeting and its realtime Live Communications Server (LCS) over time.

Microsoft sells Live Meeting, which competes with Webex, and IBM/Lotus offerings directly and through a handful of large partners including British Telecom, MCI and InterCall.

The Live Meeting grew out of Microsoft's purchase last year of PlaceWare, a Web conferencing pioneer.