Citrix Systems, makers of GotoMeeting, GotoWebinar and other video conferencing services has quietly acquired high definition voice conference provider Vapps for $26.6 million in cash. The details of the acquisition were released with Citrix’s November 14th SEC filings. Vapps had been a pioneer in the field of “HD” voice conferencing services, and has partnered with Skype, Adobe, Yahoo and MSN among other services providing high quality audio conferencing.

Vapps HD conferencing is audio that is sent on the 16 KHz “wideband” codec. This is twice the standard 8 KHz that most VoIP encoding (roughly what you’d get on a PSTN call) provides. Vapps services supports up to 500 callers on the line and provides a monthly flat rate service that encourages all day, continuous use. Vapps customers reportedly use roughly half a billion minutes per year.

Citrix will likely integrate Vapps technology into it’s current suite of collaboration services. In addition to the $26.6 million in cash, Vapps also has the usual “if they meet certain goals” incentives at a not-so-usual $4.4 million price tag. According to both companies, Vapps and Citrix have been negotiating the deal for “several months.”

Vapps had been financed solely by Azure Capital Partners, who will see a 3.6 times return on it’s initial VC investment that it staked only 18 months ago. Much shorter than the duration most VCs have to wait to see any it at all a return on their investment.

PHONE+ magazine, a resource indirect sales of for the telecommunications services and audio conferencing equipment, announced today that Copper Conferencing has been selected as a Top 50 Channel Program. All of the results of the Top 50 channels will be published in the magazine’s 2008 Channel Program Guide special issue, due out in the middle of October.

PHONE+ is very proud to honor the Copper Conferencing and all of the Top 50 Channel Program winners. Copper Conferencing was selected among hundreds of companies who submitted their channel program details in hopes of being recognized as a Top 50 Channel Program. The contestants for this notable selection was voted on by more than 1,000 indirect sales partners. Winners of the award include: communications suppliers, carriers, resellers, master agents and manufacturers. They vote on characteristics that include: extra attention, rapid quotes, sales training or special promotions.

PHONE+ Publisher, Mike Saxby:

PHONE+ is honored to recognize these standouts. Their support for the indirect channel in the telecom industry are much appreciated and lauded.

In addition to recognizing the Top 50 Channel Programs, the PHONE+ Channel Program Guide special issue features the Top 15 Channel Managers.

InstantConference, the dedicated on-demand reservation-less online conference service, answers the need for company-wide, user-managed online conferencing at an affordable price with the release of a new enterprise service. Featuring low-cost monthly plans starting at $25/month and toll free rates as low as 3.5 cents per minute, this fully-featured online meeting service can be set up and managed in a few minutes with an online administrator account.

InstantConference CEO, Alex Cory:

InstantConference Enterprise was developed with feedback from executives in small businesses and divisions of larger companies who were looking for a simple and centrally managed service at highly competitive prices. We have launched a service that offers a comprehensive suite of user-managed conferencing tools within a company organized platform.

InstantConference Enterprise targets the market for centrally-managed online conferencing services with a high-value mix of free and premium features. Company administrators can easily sign up and manage accounts by division and employee, using centrally-managed online billing and review, plus creation, and deletion of employee accounts. Employees are automatically provided with their own user-managed accounts, which include free online conferencing, free recording and storage, large scale online conferences, free desktop sharing, and very low cost toll free online conferencing. Both InstantConference and InstantConference enterprise services also come with moderator controls, dedicated conferencing numbers, and an easy-to-use online account management system.

InstantConference Enterprise Overview

Monthly Plans:

* $25/month – purchase unlimited Toll Free 800 minutes at 5.5¢/minute
* $50/month- purchase unlimited Toll Free 800 minutes at 4.5¢/minute
* $100/month- purchase unlimited Toll Free 800 minutes at 3.5¢/minute

Enterprise Features include:

* Administrator account management tools for easy sign-up and management of all employees
* Convenient monthly billing plans centralized on one administrator account
* Access to both free(a) and toll free 800 dial-in numbers
* Toll Free rates starting as low as 3.5¢/minute
* Unlimited recording, downloading and 30 days storage
* Online Moderator controls for extra security and control
* Conference activity and transaction summaries
* Up to 250 callers on every online conference
* Unlimited desktop sharing
* Dedicated online conference bridges
* 24 hour reservation-less access

Video conferencing services and web conferencing have become a vital part of many American and international companies. Video conferencing and web conferencing are convenient and lower operational costs.

Because of the millions of dollars that videoconferencing services have saved U.S. firms, the web conferencing and online collaboration industry expanded by about 30 percent in 2007. In 2008, the total income of all audio conferencing, video conferencing and web conferencing technologies is expected to hit $8 billion and is forecast to further increase to $10 billion by 2012.

Although videoconferencing services have been around for several years, during its early years early adopters of the technology claimed that in many cases the video quality was so poor or too choppy, and would often opt to meet important clients in person. New advances in high definition video conferencing services have remedied the issue.

Installing high definition videoconferencing services can be a major investment, with initial expenses for software and hardware averaging $200,000 and maintenance costs of 15 percent a year. However, with the ever-rising costs of fuel, and the related increase in travel, video conferencing technology can quickly pay for itself. Video conferencing also lowers the carbon footprint that companies create while using conventional travel.

With the newest releases of both Citirix GoToMeeting and new GoToWebinar applications, Citrix is throwing in a few free online collaboration tools. Free VoIP and audio conferencing for both Mac and PC are now integrated to deliver a seamless experience with the newest releases the company’s webcasting and webinar applications. One-click online meetings are now possible with this new combination of VoIP, phone and web conferencing for small-group online meetings and large-group webinar events.

Citrix Online (a division of Citrix Inc.) flagship product, GoToMeeting can accommodate up to 25 attendees and it’s newer online application: GoToWebinar can accommodate up to 1,000 attendees simultaneously

Vice President of Citrix Online, Elizabeth Cholawsky:

[With the new releases of GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar], every feature is based on extensive user feedback, from full Macintosh access to this new total audio solution.

Citrix Online sells direct via a sales force and online, but also has a channel program that offers incentives to resellers who recommend Citrix products to clients. Citrix has approximately 7,680 channel and alliance partners in more than 100 countries world-wide.

ConferencePlus, Inc. a provider of web conferencing, and audio/video conferencing services, today announced the launch of Share Portal, a content management tool for online conferencing. Share Portal is the backbone of a suite of services that will allow ConferencePlus customers to store, publish, and share all their web conferencing content, including video conference recordings, and other media files and documents. These various files can then be shared with other users on a secure website.

ConferencePlus President and CEO Tom Reedy on SharePortal:

We’ve had a long track record of managing the highly customized and complex events of major companies.We realized there was an unmet need for an easy way to distribute their highly valuable content. Two years ago, we began proactively addressing this need. For these customers, we developed custom portals that contain not only content that has been generated from our services, but we’re taking their archived content and other files and adding that to their portal site as well.

Share Portal will be embedded into the ConferencePlus account dashboard giving customers an easy way to store, publish, and share the captured content from their video and web conferences. This enhancement to the dashboard interface adds a feature set that already includes the ability to schedule and edit automated audio and video conference calls, launch web conferences, and view service history and charges from previous meetings.

The launch of Share Portal is the first in a suite of offerings from ConferencePlus that will include the ability to store and publish presentation files, online web presentations, webcasts, videos, podcasts, and any other relevant content. Subsequent releases planned over the next year will give online conferencing users more content types to work with, more security options, enhanced branding capabilities, and other functionality to enhance ease of use.

Today, Persony, a startup from Los Gatos, California, announced the release of a new integrated audio and web conference recording solution designed for conferencing service providers. Persony’s integrated solution allows a conference moderator to simultaneously record audio and web conferences from an easy-to-use web interface and create a synchronized recording that can be played from any web browser. The solution is a companion application to the Persony Web Conferencing 2.0, a leading private label web and video conferencing solution, in use by many conferencing service providers.

Integrated recording simplifies the making of synchronized audio and web conference recordings. Unlike other web conferencing recording solutions which require a meeting participant to record a conference call on the participant’s computer using special phone-to-pc hardware, Persony’s solution records the audio and web conference directly on the server and requires no special setup or hardware on the participant’s computer. A conference moderator can initiate the recording of both the audio and web conference with a single click. Recording are available immediately for playback and does not require downloading any additional software. Participants also have the option to download the audio as an MP3 file for podcasting or playback on portable music devices. The add-on module also allows a moderator to easily control and manage an audio conference, including muting, un-muting, hanging up a call, or dialing out to a participant.

Persony’s recording solution can be hosted by any service provider and without per-minute usage fees. Persony has partnered with ThinkEngine, an audio conference bridge manufacturer, to add controls and recording of any audio conference calls hosted on a ThinkEngine VSR1000 from a Persony web conference interface. Service providers can host a ThinkEngine voice router in their facilities.

The requirement for greater personal productivity and an increased awareness of the environment has led to a boom in the video conferencing and online collaboration market in Europe. Two recent studies released by Wainhouse Research show that across Europe, revenue from audio conferencing increased 37% and web conferencing saw a 50% revenue growth in 2007.

The data projects that the overall European market for online collaboration & conferencing services will grow to over $1 billion in 2008, and market analysis shows the potential market size to be nearly four times that. With prices for online meeting services approaching that of a typical long distance call, the barriers to more widespread usage are limited only by training, awareness and adoption of the technology.

The 2008 European Collaboration Services Market study offers a current market sizing and 5-year projection for audio and web conferencing, and other online collaboration technologies across the 12 major markets in Europe. Forecast data includes attended and unattended audio minute volume and revenue as well as web conferencing and video bridging services revenue.

Nimbuzz has launched a free mobile phone application that supports voice, telepresence, and SMS. The Java and Symbian client software will work across more than 500 handsets, and an iPhone client is being developed. The new Nimbuzz app will allow users to make and receive calls across 50 countries, particularly emerging markets where PCs are still too expensive for many people. The technology will offer free mobile VoIP, limited web conferencing via audio conference calling, IM and group chat and online collaboration, sending files across multiple IM communities, including Skype, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo!, AIM, Jabber and ICQ, plus 23 social networks, including apps/widgets for Facebook and Myspace.

Nimbuzz was founded by Dutch mobile veterans Evert Jaap Lugt and Martin Smink, the company was most recently funded to the tune of $10 million by Mangrove Capital Partners (the original Skype investor) and says it already has 500,000 registered users since the beta launched last year.

Nimbuzz is one of about a dozen other startup companies that have offer complete mobile services to customers that purchase data-only plans from their carriers. Users are then only charged the flat-rate data fee from their provider, and all calling and web conferencing features are then available through Nimbuzz. It’s not entirely clear what their profit strategy is, they may eventually charge for the service once it’s out of beta, or they may push advertising to the client’s mobile phone. Either way, Nimbuzz and its competitors are likely to force mobile phone carriers to offer more competitive pricing on their services.