Microsoft NetMeeting delivers a complete Internet conferencing solution. NetMeeting users can experience the benefits of a real-time, multipoint communication and collaboration client, and third-party vendors can take advantage of the NetMeeting platform to integrate conferencing features into their products and services. NetMeeting provides the following powerful conferencing functions in a complete, integrated package for the Internet or corporate intranet:

• Multipoint Data Conferencing. With a comprehensive set of data conferencing tools, NetMeeting lets users collaborate and share information with two or more conference participants in real-time. Users can share information from one or more applications on their computer, exchange graphics or draw diagrams with the electronic whiteboard, send messages or take meeting notes and action items with the text-based chat program, and send files to other conference participants using NetMeeting’s binary file transfer capability.
  
  
• Internet Telephony/Audio Conferencing. NetMeeting lets users talk to friends, family, and business associates over the Internet or corporate intranet in real-time. During a conversation, you can utilize NetMeeting’s data or video conferencing capabilities to enhance your communication.
  
  
• Video Conferencing. With a video capture card and camera, users can send and receive video images over the Internet or corporate intranet for face-to-face communication during a conference. Recipients can receive video even without a camera connected to their computer. Users can also utilize video conferencing to take a snapshot with a video camera and place the image on the whiteboard for discussion or markup.

NetMeeting will help many types of users take full advantage of the global reach of the Internet and corporate intranet to communicate and collaborate more effectively in real-time. NetMeeting conferencing functionality is based on international communication and conferencing standards, including the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) T.120 standard for multipoint data conferencing, and the ITU H.323 standard for audio and video conferencing. The H.323 standard specifies the use of T.120 for data conferencing functionality, enabling audio, data, and video to be used together as part of a conference.

Support for these standards ensures that users can call, connect, and communicate with people using compatible conferencing products from other companies and can take advantage of conferencing services that also support these standards. Both the ITU T.120 and H.323 standards have broad industry support, with more than 120 leading industry vendors announcing their intent to build compatible products and services. For more information about NetMeeting, see the NetMeeting Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/netmeeting/.

Sample Scenarios for NetMeeting

Some typical scenarios for using NetMeeting on the Internet and corporate intranet include the following:

• Virtual meetings. Users from different locations can conduct meetings and share information as if everyone were in the same room. With true application sharing, you can share MS-DOS text and Windows-based applications to enhance the meeting presentation.
  
  
• Document collaboration. During a conference, users can share an application running on one computer with others in the conference. Everyone can view the information shared by the application, and a participant can take control of the shared application and edit or paste information in real time.
  
  
• Customer service. From a Web site, users can connect through a single phone call to a customer service representative and use audio and data conferencing features (or even video) to communicate about a product or service.
  
  
• Telecommuting Users can stay in touch with co-workers much more effectively by collaborating in real time or participating in a presentation while at a remote location.
  
  
• Distance learning. Organizations can quickly disseminate educational material to many people in different locations at the same time over the Internet or corporate intranets.
  
  
• Technical support. With the application-sharing feature in NetMeeting, users can share an application window with a Help desk technician, or even remotely share their Control Panel so that the Help desk technician can verify the computer configuration.

How Does NetMeeting Work?

Feature Differentiation

As a complete Internet conferencing solution, Microsoft NetMeeting is unrivaled in ease, power, and functionality. Some of the factors that establish NetMeeting as the leading and most complete Internet conferencing solution include:

• Support for standards. NetMeeting delivers a standards-based Internet conferencing solution. With built-in support for the ITU T.120 standard for multipoint data conferencing, the ITU H.323 standard for audio and video conferencing, and LDAP for directory services, NetMeeting delivers the most complete conferencing product available for the Internet or corporate intranet. Support for international communication and conferencing standards enables NetMeeting to communicate with other standards-based products and services, and ensures cross-product, cross-platform, and cross-vendor interoperability.
  
  
• Multipoint communication. Rather than simply being point-to-point, NetMeeting provides built-in multipoint communication services so that many users can communicate and collaborate together during a conference. Users can connect and communicate in real-time over a corporate intranet to share applications, draw on a common, object-based whiteboard, use text-based chat, and transfer binary files—all extending the way that users communicate and interact. For audio and video conferencing, users can connect and communicate through an H.323-based conferencing server.
  
  
• True Application Sharing. Application sharing enables users to share a program running on one computer with other people in a conference. Instead of using a whiteboard to share pictures of application content, NetMeeting lets users share any Windows-based program with other participants in a conference without requiring that the applications have conferencing capabilities. When an application is shared, everyone in the conference sees what the person sharing the application is doing (for example, editing content or scrolling through information.) In addition, the person sharing the application can allow other conference participants to edit or control the application. And only the person sharing the application needs to have the application on their system.

Examples of how application-sharing can improve the way people communicate include sharing a word processing program to collaborate on a document, sharing a programming language to work on creating a program, or sharing a spreadsheet program to work together on verifying information. In addition, the protocol used by NetMeeting for application sharing is operating-system and platform independent, enabling interoperability with other Macintosh and Unix workstations. Microsoft has submitted the application sharing protocol (T.Share) to the ITU as a T.120 standard enhancement.

The following figure shows an active NetMeeting conference in which Microsoft Word is shared.

• Manageability. NetMeeting supports the system policy features of Windows 95 and Windows NT, enabling an IS organization to preconfigure and manage the functionality available to their users. For example, system administrators can set up a system policy to disable audio or video conferencing capabilities, or specify the default directory server to connect with when NetMeeting starts. System policies deliver more control over what users can and can't do, and help system administrators better manage their environment. For more information about system policies, see the Microsoft NetMeeting Resource Kit on the NetMeeting Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/netmeeting/.

  The following figure shows the Windows 95 System Policy Editor, enabling the video and/or audio capabilities of NetMeeting to be centrally managed by the network system administrator.

• Open, extensible platform. NetMeeting exposes the full communications infrastructure of protocols, codecs, and interoperability services through a set of APIs available with the Microsoft NetMeeting Software Development Kit (SDK). The NetMeeting SDK enables authors and developers to build value-added products on top of the NetMeeting platform or to add functionality to their own products. Also, system integrators or corporate development organizations can easily integrate audio, video, and data conferencing with their custom in-house solutions. Third-parties can extend NetMeeting compression algorithms, and install additional special-purpose audio or video codecs.

  
  

  

  
  

• Broad industry support. With support from more than 120 leading industry vendors for the H.323 and T.120 standards, NetMeeting has the broadest support for an Internet conferencing client and platform. Conferencing servers, gateways, multipoint control units (MCUs), audio and video devices, and conferencing services are some of the many products and services that enhance the communication and conferencing capabilities built into NetMeeting. For more information about products and services that are compatible with NetMeeting, see the Microsoft NetMeeting Compatible Products and Services Directory on the NetMeeting site at http://www.microsoft.com/netmeeting.

International Communications & Conferencing Standards

Standards are critical to achieving the vision of NetMeeting 2.0—to create and popularize the use of interoperable real-time communications and conferencing on the Internet. To achieve this vision, a real-time communications and conferencing product requires standards so that users can connect with each other easily and reliably, like using a telephone. Consumers expect and demand that all products will operate error-free—that every connection will succeed, and that they can communicate with each other independent of the operating system or the product. Standards ensure this experience.

With standards, a product from one vendor can provide a guaranteed level of compatibility with products from other vendors. Vendors can continue to build compatible, add-on products that will successfully interoperate with different multimedia telephony products. Depending on the standards they support, users can potentially share applications and information, see each other with video, talk to one another, or perform all of these functions simultaneously.

• T.120. The ITU T.120 protocols enable developers to create compatible products and services for real-time, multipoint data connections and conferencing. T.120-based applications enable many users to participate in conferencing sessions over different types of networks and connections. Depending on the type of T.120 product, they can make connections, transmit and receive data, and collaborate using compatible data conferencing features, such as sharing applications, using a conferencing whiteboard, and transferring files. Microsoft and more than 100 other major companies support the T.120 standard.
  
  
• H.323 H.323 is an ITU standard for terminals (PCs), equipment, and services for multimedia communication over local area networks (LANs), such as the Internet, which do not provide a guaranteed quality of service. H.323 terminals and equipment can carry real-time video, audio, and data, or any combination of these elements. This standard is based on the IETF real-time protocol (RTP) and real-time control protocol (RTCP), with additional protocols for call signaling, data sharing, and audiovisual communications.

  Products that use H.323 for audio and video enable users to interconnect and communicate with other people over the Internet, just as people using different makes and models of telephones can communicate over PSTN lines. H.323 defines how audio and video information is formatted and packaged for transmission over the network. Standard audio and video codecs encode and decode input/output from audio and video sources for communicating between nodes.

  Also, the H.323 specification identifies the use of T.120 services for data communications and conferencing within an H.323 session. This T.120 support means that data handling occurs in conjunction with H.323 audio and video, rather than separately.