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I have 10 scrum (agile) teams and all of my teams have remote members in different locations.

I need the following feature but not necessarily at the same time:

  • Works and easy to set up for everyone (this is my biggest issue)
  • Audio
  • Video
  • See and speak with all members in "Brady bunch" style
  • Share desktops
  • not crazy expensive

We have tried

  • Microsoft Live Messenger (great for one on one video/voice)
  • Google+ Hangout (great for the "Brady bunch" view but can be flaky & screen share is too small)
  • Fuze (buggy, pricy, have to download a plug in EVERY TIME it is used)
  • Join.me (my favorite for ease of use but only supports screen share)

Thanks in advance!!

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  • Just a note: Give everyone the same communication bandwidth, even ppl sitting in the same room. Otherwise, remote team members are excluded from discussions taking place on a whiteboard.
    – Peter Gfader
    Mar 10, 2012 at 18:30
  • Best I know of is aircraft, sometimes trains + meeting rooms. And I'm serious.
    – Andy
    Mar 17, 2012 at 21:17

10 Answers 10

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I would give skype a try. There is a business edition with group video conferencing. It's not crazy expensive - it should be within a business budget. It does all of your bullets. Screen sharing may be in beta still - I'm not sure. Just pair it up with join.me if need be.

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  • I agree, we use join.me and skype. Or sometimes GoToMeeting too.
    – RG-3
    Mar 15, 2012 at 0:33
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If you're a Microsoft shop Lync fully integrates into the environment, gives you presence across your other MS tools (Outlook, SharePoint, etc...) and is feature rich giving you text chat, video and voice and any combination of those. Beware, it requires a real investment in infrastructure. MS is telling me we have the most fullsome implementation in Canada right now but it didn't get done overnight, we've had resources on this on and off for a year. Wealso use it to deliver all our user voice telephony, a complete VoIP based system. It is slick though, my teams are mobile and we can communicate as if we were all in the office together but be far apart.

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I'm afraid to say that's unlikely to have a silver bullet tool to fit all these requirements (maybe a good niche to work on?).

Still, I'd say that the best would be a pairing of some of the best ones listed on your own post.

Hope I'm wrong and you find your software.

Cheers

ps.: I was intended to put it as a comment, but then I realized it would eventually become the most probable answer...

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1

We have lots of distributed teams, and used Skype a lot. But the main problem was missing group screen sharing (which has been added now, did not yet evaluate though). We then evaluated Webex and Goto Meeting (the new one has group video as well), and found Goto Meeting overall better.

Skype seems to be doing the best job to keep audio&video in sync, and also allows up to 10 video feeds (maybe more now?). But Goto Meeting also has a phone bridge, which is more reliable, as well as many external people (non-technical people) still prefer classic phone cal;ls.

With Goto Meeting, at times the video is a bit out of sync, but screensharing works in good quality, audio is most of the time great, group video (I think up to 6 feeds) is ok as well.

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Microsoft Lync is an application by Microsoft that has screen sharing, audio, video conferencing, and it works well.

It's not free, but there is a trial.

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Have you tried Blue Jeans Network. We support all of the functionality you are looking for and then some.

DISCLAIMER: I am involved with this organization.

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What I do generally is that I log in via Skype and share my OneNote to my clients. If they are located in some other region, then GoToMeeting is good so far. Screen Sharing: I can do it either Skype or join.me

So my cents: You have to evaluate and decide. It would be cool to integrate all these things into one and still fit in our pockets.

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I recommend polycom's (http://www.polycom.com/) solutions. They are quite expensive but provide the best possible video and audio quality. I think they have the best coding and the best algorithms in the industry. There's a desktop version which isn't as expensive as standalone appliances.

AFAIK, Google uses the same solution for their inter-office video conferences.

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ooVoo is another option, though I am not sure if screen/desktop sharing is supported. But it's a handy tool. http://www.oovoo.com/home.aspx

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Have you heard of Sococo Team Space? Integrates screen sharing, video, voice and chat communications.

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