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?
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.
I use Microsoft SharedView It works great in VISTA and it's very easy to use.
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.
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.
We've used both LiveMeeting and Webex with good results.
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.
DimDim is free (for small meetings that don't need branding) and works pretty well.
i've used radmin for this purpose. it allows file transfer, etc. iirc costs about $50 http://www.radmin.com
adobe's connect now looks slick.
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.
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.
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.
