Web Conferencing Report: A Comparative Analysis of Skype and iMeet

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WEB CONFERENCING REPORT
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Report..............................................................................................................................................4
Select any two different web conferencing providers to compare and contrast their features and
discussing their applications and suitability for the businesses in general..................................4
Discuss the skills required to conduct research online and the challenges being faced..............8
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11
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Introduction
The report aims to identify the importance of information and communication technology (ICT)
in today's context to the organisations and researchers as well. In this report, the comparison and
contrast of two companies, Skype and iMeet will be conduct based on their features, applications
and their suitability for the businesses in today's competitive world as well. The specifications
and target markets of both the companies will be discussed in this report. It also aims to identify
the challenges which a researcher could face while conducting online researches. The report
helps to understand the required skills for a researcher which plays an essential part while
conducting an investigation.
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Report
Select any two different web conferencing providers to compare and contrast their features
and discussing their applications and suitability for the businesses in general.
Online web conferencing is one of the best ways to get instant discussion and solutions for the
ongoing things in business as well. These days most business houses started using web
conferencing to get done the immediate, and it helps to reduce the costs of travelling and other
expenses of old school conferences. There are many companies which are offering web
conferencing services, and they are providing excellent solution to the issues related to the web
conferencing, but Skype and iMeet are two of the upmost web conferencing service providers
who are few of those most used conference service providers worldwide as well (Quartiroli et al.,
2017).
The following table helps to understand the comparison of two of the following companies.
Comparison Skype iMeet
1. Vendor company
comparison
Microsoft is already one of the
most renowned companies
worldwide. It previously
provided many of online
digital solutions.
PGi also has been a global
leader in innovation and
service from the past 20 years.
2. Vision Microsoft's aim to empower
every organisation and person
so that they will achieve more
in their life with the help of
advanced technology.
PGi's CEO first started this, as
he developed an inexpensive
and straightforward card to
connect to people anywhere in
the world. He wanted to start
it for military personals early.
3. Prices/costs Skype software prices start The prices of iMeet software
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from $5 per month/user. services start from $9 per
month/user.
4. Ratings
Skype carries a 4.5 out of 5-
star rating, which indicates its
popularity among customers.
iMeet has a total of 3.1 out of
5-star rating, which helps to
understand this software is
comparatively less popular
among users.
5. Features It has few features such as
chat, conference calling and
VoIP, and all these features
are including in the monthly
rentals.
The prices they are offering
include conference calling in
it.
6. Participants Skype helps to organise a
meeting at the same time up to
10 000 people.
It allows up to 125 people to
communicate and organise a
meeting altogether.
7. Platforms Supported It is supported by web-based,
iPhone apps, android apps and
windows phone apps as well.
web-based platforms only
support iMeet.
8. Customer
support
Skype got a 4-star rating for
its customer services, which
help to understand that they
are providing the best of
customer support to its
customers.
iMeet got a 1star rating for its
customer support service.
9. Integrations It integrates a total of 52 It only integrates with a total
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different softwares, which
includes office 365 and slack,
etc.
of five different softwares that
includes Box and Dropbox,
etc. (Kate & Crocker, 2015).
The following table helps to identify the contrast of these two softwares (Skype & iMeet).
Contrast Skype iMeet
1. Same platforms Skype is available on desktop,
mobiles and cloud.
iMeet also shares the same
platforms spaces such as
desktop, mobiles and cloud.
2. Screenshots It is one of the same services
provided by companies.
iMeet also provides the
facility of taking screenshots
during the chat and
conferences.
3. Target customers Freelancers, small, medium
and large scale enterprises are
its primary target customers of
Skype.
iMeet also targets the same
group of targeted customers
such as small, medium and
large companies and
freelancers as well.
4. Supported languages It is recommended to mostly
each possible popular styles of
the world.
iMeet also has some features
to get support from different
methods (Lo, 2016).
Above mentioned, both the tables help to understand the specifications and features of the Skype
and iMeet softwares of web conferencing. Thus, they both are pretty good for business houses as
well as they are helpful enough. Skype provides employees with the safety and security from
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Microsoft, which are very high end and advance. It helps the company to maintain their business
records, data and information safe handed. It helps to reduce the costs and increase the
opportunities for growth and success. It also helps to let the companies rely on authentic
conference and business meetings; it provides solutions for instant conferences and discussion
panels as well.
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Discuss the skills required to conduct research online and the challenges being faced.
Online research methods are considered to be those methods where researches can collect data
and information from the internet. This is quite different and advances from the old school,
traditional methods of conducting research. In online research, researchers can collect data from
various resources which are available online. Online research helps to manage and analyse
different information resources (Leu et al., 2015). It opens the door of extensive online available
information. Mostly the information is free and easy to access as well. There are several tools or
techniques available online which helps to collect and analyse data for conducting online
research, but it also required some of the different skills which play an essential role in the whole
research process as well. The following are a few of those different skills which are required for
conducting online research.
 Able to use networks – It is imperative that the researcher should be able to use different
systems such as social media and other digital interfaces as well. In online research, the
whole content is available online, which make it required to make it able to use
interfaces.
 Time management – When the researchers start looking out for the desired information,
the internet provides different available options of the one thing, and it makes it
complicated to get the desired outcomes on time. Managing time is one of the most
required skills for conducting research.
 Respect ownerships – The utmost prime skill which is required for conducting proper
online research, it will be essential the researchers respect the ownership tags. Contents
have their intellectual rights of creators or the producers as well and taking it without
their concern could be illegal (Vitak et al., 2016).
 Broad perspective – it is imperative that the researchers have a more comprehensive,
which helps to get the proper information with good availability of the data as well. It
helps to try and search with different keywords and on various search engines, which
helps to provide useful content for conducting research.
 Able to check sources – It is imperative that the researcher will be able to monitor
resources and collect and evaluate the required information from those resources as well.
It helps to maintain the validity, needs, accuracy and context of the research as well.
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 Patient – Sometimes the online research could be very time taking or no longer
providing any desired outcomes, that time it will be very required that the researchers still
able to become patient, calm and focused to the research to complete the study (Leu et
al., 2015).
The following are the challenges which a researcher would face during the time of research as
well.
 Much information available – on the internet, there is too much information available
online, which makes the research more and more complicated. More information often
leads to misleading information.
 Many resources available – On the internet, there are many resources which are
available when it comes to choosing few of them, it would make the researcher confuse,
and that can impact the quality of the research as well (Roberts, 2015).
 Time management – Time management is the one thing for which research should be
such concern about because every study has its time limit and if research takes much time
in few steps, it would be lead to impact the whole time for research as well.
 Plagiarism prevention – sometimes the researcher are advised to no plagiarism and
researchers doesn't get it when it comes to sharing information and plagiarism prevention
also.
 Multitasking – Multitasking could be a good thing, but at some points in research, it
could be a problem to handle many things all together. It may vary subject to subject but
still in research multitasking could be an issue as well.
 No real information – On different available resources, there is difficult to find such
practical information and their evidence because most data doesn't have their proof so all
information can't be considered as reliable information (Roberts, 2015).
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Conclusion
Two popular web conferencing companies comparison and contrast has been discussed based on
their applications, users and suitability for businesses as well. The report has been based on
Skype and iMeet softwares for web conferencing. It helped to understand the impact on
information and communication technology (ICT) to the businesses has been addressed in the
context of these two software companies. The required skills for a researcher and the challenges
which a researcher could face during the research has also been addressed in this report.
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References
Leu, D.J., Forzani, E., Rhoads, C., Maykel, C., Kennedy, C. and Timbrell, N., 2015. The new
literacies of online research and comprehension: Rethinking the reading achievement
gap. Reading Research Quarterly, 50(1), pp.37-59.
Vitak, J., Shilton, K. and Ashktorab, Z., 2016, February. Beyond the Belmont principles: Ethical
challenges, practices, and beliefs in the online data research community. In Proceedings of the
19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing pp. 941-
953.
Quartiroli, A., Knight, S. M., Etzel, E. F., & Monaghan, M. (2017). Using Skype to facilitate
team-based qualitative research, including the process of data analysis. International Journal of
Social Research Methodology, 20(6), 659-666.
Roberts, L.D., 2015. Ethical issues in conducting qualitative research in online
communities. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 12(3), pp.314-325.
Lo B.D.Y.S., 2016. To Block or not to Block? Network Competition when Skype enters the
Mobile Market!.
Katz, J.E. and Crocker, E.T., 2015. 1. Skype in Daily Life: general patterns, emerging uses, and
concerns. Mobile and Digital Communication.
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