Even for traditional meetings, Miazga says presenters need to change their style. It requires different facilitation skills. Although it's Web-based, Web conferencing isn't free. Because seats aren't named-user licenses, if you buy 10 seats, any 10 people in the company can be in a PlaceWare meeting at any given time. MyPlaceWare, a scaled-down version for small groups, is offered online for free.
Collaboration tools can also differ in how they're delivered to the customer.
In the collaboration-tool market, the application service providermodel has caught on very quickly. Some tools, such as Integrated Application Technologies Inc.'s Internet Office distributed project-management software, are available only over the Internet. For example, eRoom is available through eRoom.net, hosted online, and is priced according to usage. Wharton's Ditto says that upgrading to eRoom 4.0, which lets students access rooms with only a browser, from 3.0, which required downloading Windows-based software onto a client, increased student adoption of the technology. In spite of the success of Web conferencing and other Web-based collaboration tools, not everyone is enamored of the technology.