Online meetings with HP Virtual Rooms
Were you ever on a phone call wishing you could share a presentation? Do you ever have to travel to meet colleagues and clients in different countries? Do you need to work together with clients to get consensus on plans and proposals? If so, HP Virtual Rooms could be the smart way to improve communications and cut travel costs.
What is HP Virtual Rooms?
HP Virtual Rooms is an internet tool that creates an online conference centre for people to come together and share their Windows desktop (so that colleagues can see what’s on your screen), review documents, give presentations and chat. It’s secure and private – only people you invite can join the meeting. Presenters can use webcams or computer microphones to present to participants or you can use HP Virtual Rooms in conjunction with a conventional phone conference.
What can you use it for?
HP Virtual Rooms can be used for many different business tasks:
- Training. Share your desktop or applications to show invited viewers exactly how to use software and get things done.
- Presentations. Invite customers to your presentation and let them see your slides on their screen while you talk through the issues. Respond to questions and flip through slides instantly.
- Team meetings. Share status reports, graphics, pictures, work-in-progress software or designs with the whole team, wherever they are and get feedback instantly. Use online collaboration and editing tools to mark up changes so that everyone can see them.
In fact, as the name suggests, it’s like a virtual conference room for any type of meeting but, because it’s online, everyone can go there without leaving their desk. It’s compatible with Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS and Linux.
How does it work?
The organiser logs into the HP Virtual Rooms website and generates a one-time key for the room. This lets other participants join the conference. The first time someone uses HP Virtual Rooms, it installs a small piece of software to display the contents of the room but apart from that joining a conference is as easy as logging into any other web-based service.
During the conference, there are one or more leaders and up to 25 participants (depending on the price plan). The conference leaders can share files, applications or their desktop; they appear in a window in real time on everyone else’s screen. Everyone also has access to instant messaging, with the whole group or one-to-one with other people.
It’s available in 11 European languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Czech, Greek) so it works well for colleagues in different countries.
How do I get it?
Watch a video to see it in action. You can also get a free 60-day trial to evaluate it in your own business. If you want to use it regularly, you can buy an annual or monthly subscription that lets you hold an unlimited number of meetings. The price only varies according to the maximum number of participants.
