Patent ID: 7251675

Claim:
A meeting system in which supplied-data convertible using a virtual machine is transmitted and received among a plurality of processing apparatuses interconnected via a transmission line, and in which meeting data is reproduced, at least two of said plurality of processing apparatuses comprising a meeting data reproducing apparatus respectively, each meeting data reproducing apparatus reproducing meeting data that includes fixed presentation data and supplied-data, and the presentation data including at least one pointer indicating an address of the supplied-data so that a portion of the meeting data may be reproduced by specifying at least one of a particular presenter, a meeting participant or time; at least one meeting data reproducing apparatus comprising: a conversion unit including a virtual machine that receives the supplied-data from another one of the plurality of processing apparatuses, reads files in a common format and performs operations specified in the files, the virtual machine converting said supplied-data into a data format which allows said meeting data to be reproduced, the meeting data being stored in units based on corresponding units of the supplied-data, each unit of the meeting data being identifiable by a specific processing apparatus that supplied a corresponding unit of the supplied-data; a communication interface unit that receives said supplied-data from another processing apparatus; and a storage unit in which a generated image is stored and which is accessible by said another processing apparatus via said communication interface unit, and each of said at least one meeting data reproducing apparatus and said another meeting data reproducing apparatus including said conversion unit and said communication interface unit reading a part of said meeting data from said storage unit and reproducing meeting data in a task-distributed fashion.