Why Web Video Conferencing is Essential for Businesses

Hong Kong is one of the busiest trading centres in the world, with the market capitalisation of its stock exchange being valued at US$ 2.7 trillion. Numerous companies have set up base in this city-state due to the economic freedom it offers. Advancements in technology have opened up new avenues for trade for these companies, which work closely with domestic as well as foreign counterparts. Web conferencing has emerged as one of the best ways for communicating for such organisations, as it enables them to liaise with associates in a streamlined and cost effective manner.

Nowadays, GoToMeeting, WebEx, Adobe Connect 8 and Windows Live Meeting are increasingly being used by corporate firms that want to optimise communication among professionals and reduce travelling costs. These web conferencing software solutions have been designed to suit the exact requirements of commercial organisations and provide them features that can make their operations more effective and at a lower cost. The web conferencing solutions available in Hong Kong presently have various features that can enhance the communication infrastructure of any small, medium and large firm. The solutions work on the bandwidth of the Internet and can harness the bandwidth of a simple broadband connection to send data, voice and video to all parts of the world.

Web video conference solutions provided by leading web conferencing vendors have some essential features that are needed to make an online meeting successful. The most prominent feature is the ability for collaboration, or real-time sharing, which allows users to share documents, files, applications and even whole desktops with multiple participants during the event. Some conferencing products can combine emails, instant messaging, text messaging, fax, calendar tools and other applications; it also enables group members to send private and public messages during the event.

Web conferencing software also promotes collaboration between remotely located professionals via. whiteboarding feature. Participants can write on a virtual whiteboard with a mouse and a keyboard during the web conference. Furthermore, they can annotate images and diagrams with the help of similar online tools. The solutions available in Hong Kong presently are cross-platform compatible, which means that users working on iOS, Windows and Linux can communicate with each other easily. If a participant does not have the software to run certain applications or files, they are still able to view the shared content due to the application sharing feature of the web conferencing software. Likewise, all participants can view the information displayed on the moderator's screen in multipoint conferencing.

Vendors can convert video conferences into webcasting solutions by recording the event when requested by the clients. A web video conference makes use of the webcam of the computer to transmit still images and live videos, accompanied by a voiceover. This can easily be recorded and then broadcast over the Internet or the corporate intranet, according to the target audience. Apart from that, vendors can provision for Q&A sessions and real-time polls during the event. By opting for the 'mute' feature of the web conferencing solution, moderators can effectively turn the conference into an interactive webinar. This is because other participants can only hear the moderator's voiceover and cannot broadcast their own views.

Web conferencing security is a key aspect of web conferencing. Due to the open nature of the Internet, confidentiality of the event can be easily compromised. Thus, it is important that vendors based in Hong Kong encrypt their solutions as per the highest security protocols, like SSL and TLS.

Web conferencing has become an indispensable communication tool for every organization in Hong Kong and across the world.