7
votes

We've been using Netmeeting for doing presentations with remote workers. Now that MS has disowned it (and it doesn't run on Vista - mostly), we need something else. Since Netmeeting was free, our budget is right around $0. We don't need audio or video, but do need to share apps/desktop and allow a remote user to take control.

What are some good cheap/free alternatives?

13 Answers 13

8
votes

Yugma is a free alternative that I've used before.

With priced options there is

3
  • WebEx works great - crazy expensive though.
    – Shog9
    Apr 30, 2009 at 18:09
  • I agree, that's why I've been leaning more towards Yugma as of late
    – Joseph
    Apr 30, 2009 at 18:10
  • GoToMeeting works well for us, we stopped using WebEx due to price. Apr 30, 2009 at 19:14
5
votes

Office Communications Server might not be that expensive. If your company has licensed the Enterprise version of Office, it already comes with a Client Access License for Communicator.

That makes the price of OCS only $700 (for the server), even if you have thousands of clients.

Food for thought.

4
votes

I use Microsoft SharedView It works great in VISTA and it's very easy to use.

3
  • Tried using this on XP and got no where. And then it crashed.
    – Shog9
    Apr 30, 2009 at 22:42
  • Shog9, my experience is different. I have used it many times on XP without problems.
    – JAG
    May 1, 2009 at 18:31
  • I'm sure lots of folks have. But for those of us with the wrong video hardware / drivers / multiple monitors / ??? ... it's effectively useless. And cleaning up that last 10% of breakage doesn't exactly appear to be much of a priority for the developers.
    – Shog9
    May 2, 2009 at 0:29
3
votes

I'd recommend Citrix's GoToMeeting. I have used it to do both presentations and remote support. Its very simple to use and has worked very well for me in the past, even over poor internet connections.

1
  • I've used it, but $50/month is a little pricey.
    – user640
    Apr 30, 2009 at 18:03
2
votes

There's always VNC. The free version has some OS limitations, but works well. May not work for you b/c you have to pay for the Vista and Mac versions.

1
  • I second this suggestion. VNC has worked very well for my distributed team. The supported version of VNC have some nice features that are worth paying for. May 1, 2009 at 9:35
1
vote

We've used both LiveMeeting and Webex with good results.

1
vote

I use SharedView when doing over the web training. It allows the other user to highlight and point to things with their own mouse so you can see what they are talking about.

It's free and has worked very well. The only downside is that all participants must have a Live account (free) in order to start or join sessions.

1
vote

DimDim is free (for small meetings that don't need branding) and works pretty well.

0
votes

i've used radmin for this purpose. it allows file transfer, etc. iirc costs about $50 http://www.radmin.com

0
votes

adobe's connect now looks slick.

2
  • URL: adobe.com/acom/connectnow
    – Shog9
    May 2, 2009 at 0:31
  • Connectnow works well, but my experience is that it's really, really slow on older machines (it was a slideshow on an old Pentium 4-based Celeron 2.0 Ghz CPU). Also, it's $40 per month if you want to have meetings with more than 5 people.
    – Carl C
    Jun 18, 2009 at 22:57
0
votes

I've been using Vyew for the last year or so. It's cross platform so Windows, Mac and Linux users can both view and share their screens.

0
votes

You might check out ConferenceXP.

ConferenceXP is a shared-source research platform developed by Microsoft Research that provides simple, flexible, and extensible conferencing and collaboration using high-bandwidth networks and the advanced multimedia capabilities of Microsoft Windows. ConferenceXP helps researchers and educators develop innovative applications and solutions that feature broadcast-quality audio and video in support of real-time distributed collaboration and distance learning environments.

0
votes

If you just need a quick replacement, you could use the Vista-integrated "Windows Collaboration". It's gotten some bad reviews though, I'd check to make sure it meets your needs first.

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