About a year ago I wrote about OpenACircle(OAC) the collaboration technology company that won at Fall Demo(’08). The goals of OAC were simple:
1- To serve mobile professionals (who are not well-served by either enterprise or consumer collaboration solutions)
2- To make the software easy (1-2 clicks to do anything)
3- To provide a seamless and fluid collaboration and presence tool that supports the way people work naturally (moving in and out of different types of computer-mediated interpersonal interactions throughout their day).

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Over the last few weeks I have been briefed by LiquidPlanner, @task and Qtask, all of which offer their Project Management (PM) products as a SaaS (software as a service). Each has a different approach, philosophy and strength to share with this growing market.

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I received this notice by e-Mail this morning. Not all real-time collaboration vendors are doing poorly, some with innovative technology or distribution and partnership strategies are doing well even in a down economy.

“iLinc (AMEX:ILC), a leader in web conferencing, desktop video conferencing software, filed paperwork today with the Securities and Exchange Commission to terminate the Company's registration under the Securities Exchange Act. As a result, the Company's reporting obligations under the Securities Exchange Act automatically have been suspended and the Company will no longer be trading on the NYSE Alternext exchange starting Monday, February 16, 2009. Ilinc resumed trading today (19th) on the Pink Sheets, the inter-dealer electronic quotation and trading system in the over-the-counter (OTC) securities market. The new stock symbol for iLinc's common stock is "ILNC." ”

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Over the course of my career this question keeps popping up. Because collaboration is a behavior, and even using new Web 2.0 technologies the benefits are often indirect and intangible, so it is a hard question to answer. Certainly the simple ROI tools that many of the web conferencing companies tout, that show how much you are saving on a meeting because you did not fly there and are using their tool, are good, but not sufficient. That ROI argument will hold for about 6 month, in the mean time you need to come up with more reasons that prove the current or future collaborative technologies are not only the right thing to do, but will save money or make it easier to make money. This is especially true in today’s recessionary environment.

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This is about the 4th Avistar CMO I have talked with. Avistar is a desktop videoconferencing company that has been around for 15 years and has Bob Metcafe on their board. The last time we saw them (about 2 years ago) they were trying to tell us that a $700 video attachment to a PC was the way to go for video conferencing. We did not buy it, and either did the general market.

Avistar is kind of like a cat with 9 lives. I am not sure which life they are on currently, but they have re-invented themselves again. A new CEO(Simon Moss) is focused on business rather than just technology. Today Avistar has an all software offering, lower price point, no direct sales force (reseller channel) all of which made a big difference in revenues. Desktop licenses jumped from 15,000 licenses sold over the last 15 years of the companie's history, to 100,000 licenses sold in just 2008 (almost a 10x increase). I talked with Stephen Epstein, the new CMO about this dramatic business turn around. I spoke with Stephen twice: the second time was in person at Avistar HQ; and the other time via the C3 Confernce product from one of the video conferencing rooms at Avistar HQ in San Mateo CA. Stephen is based in N.Y. and uses the Avistar technology on a daily basis to work with colleagues at Avistar and others in his value network.

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