Zoho launches Zoho Meeting beta... WebEx replacement?

Zoho is announcing this morning that their new Zoho Meeting tool is moving into beta. I asked Raju (Zoho evangelist) for a quote that describes Zoho Meeting, "Zoho Meeting is an important milestone for Zoho. As you know, the key aspect of online apps is collaboration and Zoho Meeting enhances our existing collaboration functionalities further." He also sent over the following list of features:

• Create Meetings, share desktop with multiple attendees
• Attendees can attend the meeting from any operating system
• Has three viewers - Active-X, Java and Flash
• Participants can choose to control presenters desktop
• Meetings can be embedded in web pages and applications
• Zoho Meeting is integrated into Zoho Show. Users can add a Meeting slide into Zoho Show. This combines presentations and desktop sharing functionality
• Zoho chat is integrated into Zoho Meeting
• Meeting is currently free while it is in Beta

I think the two features that stand out to me are the integration with the other Zoho tools. If you are a Zoho suite user, this is a nobrainer. The other piece is the cost. While free for now, I can only imagine that it will follow suit with the other Zoho tools and the price will be low compared to other tools such as WebEx. 

Earlier this year, Jake reviewed Yugma, another new meeting/desktop sharing software. As more of us work with groups that are scattered around the world, the usage of these tools will skyrocket. While sending emails works a lot of the time, face-2-face discussions are critical for a product's success.

Raju created a brief overview video, check it out below:

Editor's notes: Zoho is a current sponsor of CenterNetworks. Also, please understand that while other sites broke the embargo on this story, CN has a firm policy that we will never break an embargo. Trust is more important.