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| Bridgit | |
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Years ago, data collaboration products were sparse and in the early stages of development. Two of them, WebEx and Microsoft PlaceWare, have since evolved into sophisticated subscription-based services. The pay-as-you-go service model makes sense for law firms that collaborate infrequently or don’t wish to invest in an in-house server. I am sure application sharing (a data collaboration mode where attendees jointly control a specific application), a rich annotation toolset, and integrated video and voice conferencing has its adherents. However, I suspect use of actual collaboration products involve attendees simply viewing and jointly marking up a document. Smart Technologies’ Bridgit data-conferencing software gives lawyers an inexpensive way to purchase, rather than rent from a service provider, the top 20 percent of these most useful features. It’s a painless, practical data collaboration product that lets its users create a no-frills virtual meeting. It offers a single collaboration mode and desktop sharing, in which remote attendees view the host’s computer screen. If — and this is a big if — you can forgo integrated chatting, meeting management and text annotation, then Bridgit might make sense for you. Here is how it works: Bridgit attendees rendezvous at the Bridgit server, rather than at a Web page. The host and the invited guests each launch the Bridgit client program, a thin piece of Windows software that speedily connects with the server. Separate Bridgit server software controlling the collaboration sessions runs on your firm’s Internet-connected PCs. As I discovered, you don’t have to be telecom savvy to install the server software. The installation automatically installs the background Windows services running the show and a small piece of administrative software for monitoring session activity. The client-side interface initially displays a list of current meetings. With Bridgit, meetings are established on-the-fly, saving the host from formally booking the virtual room for a given date and time. The host just clicks on the “create” button and then enters the meeting name in a dialog box. That is it. Too simple perhaps. Without a scheduling or reservation mechanism (found in high-end products), hosts might find Bridgit has maxed out on its concurrent user limit, and the meeting will have to wait. Bridgit’s strength is its simplicity. Anyone, no matter how technophobic, can start a meeting without having to learn a manual’s worth of details or to ask a system administrator for help. Guests are invited through an e-mail. On my PC, Bridgit brought up Outlook with a prepared message containing the meeting name and the URL of the Bridgit client software. I filled in the e-mail address of my guest, added a short introductory message explaining the agenda and sent it off. After the message is received, guests click on the URL to download their copy of the Bridgit client. If they already have the client through a previous meeting, they can launch it directly. They too will see the screen showing the current meetings. They enter the correct “room” by selecting the name of the meeting they have been invited to, and then pressing the “join” button. The host has the option of assigning a password to prevent uninvited attendees. Bridgit’s only collaborative mode is “desktop sharing.” The remote attendees see everything displayed on the host’s desktop. Make sure to close critical applications you don’t want others to see before the session starts. To get around the privacy problem, the Bridgit documentation suggests maximizing the application you plan to work with so it covers the entire screen, hiding everything beneath it. It’s a workable solution. With your attendees now linked to your desktop, the collaboration can begin. During testing, my remote attendee was seeing an in-sync view of my desktop: Cursor movements were seen without delay. Both of us were using high-speed Internet connections, and we always were literally on the same-page of our Microsoft Word document. Kudos to Smart Technologies. And now the gripes. Bridgit’s annotation tool is a hard-to-wield freehand pen that attendees can try to use to mark up the displayed document. Bridgit definitely needs a more legible text annotator, which is found in other vendors’ collaboration software. To communicate with attendees, you need a separate voice conferencing service or you must rely on text chat. I used America Online’s Instant Messenger. But clicking on the AIM chat box (or any other application) automatically erases the markup. I think it’s more than a minor annoyance, but the Bridgit documentation says it’s a feature. Letting your attendees display what is on their screens makes your conference truly multilateral. Any attendee can request desktop sharing from the current host. Unfortunately, Bridgit does not let the original host take the desktop back at will. This is an unfortunate symmetrical arrangement. However, this still is a capable, well-designed software tool that really is a collaboration appliance. With fewer features, there is less to go wrong, and what Bridgit does do, it does beautifully. |
Smart Technologies Inc. Price:
$1,999 for a server license, plus $100 per user license, purchased in
multiples Windows 95/98/ME/NT/XP Reviewed by Andy Green, a telecommunications consultant and technology writer and researcher based in Glen Ridge, N.J. PROS CONS VERDICT |
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