VIA3 CEO Calls Out WebEx Pay-Per-Use Meetings “Price Gouging”

USA (SANEPR.com) June 9, 2009 -- In a speech to a user group in San Jose, VIA3 CEO Neil Woodruff pointed out a glaring discrepancy in web conferencing pricing between VIA3 and Cisco WebEx’s “Pay-Per-Use” meeting model (which is priced at 33 cents per minute per user, plus an additional 20 cents per minute per user for the inclusion of teleconferencing). Using the example of VIA3 pricing of just $23.75 a month for everything, Mr. Woodruff pointed out the amount of minutes a user could enjoy with VIA3’s all inclusive plan is 43,200 vs. Cisco WebEx’s paltry 72.

With Cisco WebEx’s Pay-Per-Use meeting service, a user could only get slightly under 72 total minutes of WebEx web conferencing. Here’s the catch: It would have to be a WebEx meeting with no one else attending. To actually have two people in meeting, you would be limited to just under 36 meeting minutes per month, compared to the VIA3 all inclusive $23.75 price. This means that Cisco WebEx users are faced with either radically curtailing their conferencing, or spending much higher amounts of money than originally expected or budgeted for.

With VIA3, a user gets 43,200 minutes in a typical 30 day month for presentations, meetings, collaboration, training, or webinars. Literally, the entire month is available for VIA3 users to conduct unlimited conferencing with unlimited attendees, 24 hours a day. When compared to the 36 minutes of a two person meeting in Cisco WebEx Pay-Per-Use, VIA3 offers 1200 times more minutes in a month. The numbers get even worse for Cisco WebEx if you add more than one person to your meeting. Even if you only have occasional meetings, VIA3 makes much more sense than Cisco WebEx Pay-Per-Use Meetings.

Mr. Woodruff also notes that VIA3 offers more features than WebEx Pay-Per-Use Meetings. “Not a day goes by that we don’t hear from a WebEx customer who is startled by the final presented (WebEx) bill, and wants to find a more affordable alternative solution. They are always shocked to find VIA3 offers more features than WebEx at a fraction of the price.”

The feature discrepancy also came into the spotlight when Mr. Woodruff recently challenged Cisco WebEx to a web conferencing “taste test” to be conducted on a national scale. WebEx, at the time of this challenge, has not yet accepted.

Mr. Woodruff concluded by saying “WebEx users wanting to dramatically lower their bills with affordable, secure, feature rich web conferencing can visit http://www.via3.com to “taste test” for themselves. WebEx users who want to throw fiscal caution to the wind should continue paying dramatically more fees for fewer features at www.webex.com.”
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VIA3
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