Citrix GoToMeeting Wins More Than 2,000 Business Customers in First Six Months of Availability
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Over 50% of Customers Switch from Current Market Leaders Because of GoToMeeting's Simplicity and Economical Pricing for Everyday Meetings
Citrix Online, a division of Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), today announced that Citrix® GoToMeeting™, a relative newcomer to the online meeting market space, has won more than 2,000 business customers since its general-availability launch in August 2004. Many in this large and rapidly growing customer base are small-to medium-sized businesses, and the majority have switched from the current marketshare leaders, including WebEx (NASDAQ: WEBX). Companies that switch are attracted to the benefits of Citrix Online's second-generation on-demand platform, including GoToMeeting's ease-of-use and economical pricing model, which offers an unlimited number of meetings of unrestricted length for a flat, low monthly fee, in contrast to most other online meeting services where customers are charged per-minute and per-user fees, plus overage charges, which can drive up costs quickly and unpredictably.
$3 billion market forecast
In its World Web Conferencing Markets report, market research company Frost & Sullivan forecasts that the market for online meetings will grow to $1 billion within a year, and to nearly $3 billion by 2010. That growth will be led by small-to-medium-sized businesses, a core audience for which Citrix GoToMeeting is designed. In-Stat/MDR, another market research firm, also sees robust growth in the market led by smaller businesses. "By leveraging its expertise in developing easy-to-use and secure, hosted solutions for small businesses, Citrix Online is expanding its proven model and technology with Citrix GoToMeeting," said Kneko Burney, chief market strategist for the firm. "Citrix Online understands that small business owners and decision-makers have to do more with less, and place the highest premium on time and money. With this in mind, Citrix Online has brought a simple, efficient and affordable service to market: a way for small business decision-makers to meet with customers and prospects, discuss sales proposals, and collaborate with partners and vendors online."
Affordability, security and ease-of-use are attributes demanded by Citrix GoToMeeting users like Stephen Zielinski, director of technical support for TyMetrix, a leading provider of legal billing and claims technology products. The company previously used one of the market leading Web-conferencing products, but found it cumbersome and expensive, resulting in fewer presentations which limited sales growth. That all changed when TyMetrix made the switch to Citrix GoToMeeting. The company's sales and training staff now conducts more meetings and has cut its Web-conferencing costs by $6,000 for the last six months of 2004. According to Zielinski, "GoToMeeting has increased our sales by an additional 20 percent," by enabling the company's sales staff to deliver more product demonstrations more easily to more prospective customers.
Be there without going there
Many small and medium businesses are using Citrix GoToMeeting to dramatically improve productivity and reduce the need for traveling, or even eliminate it altogether. Having the ability to collaborate with other users on any file, graphic, or application on any desktop, Citrix GoToMeeting makes it easier and more cost-effective to stay connected to customers and prospects. Publisher Hank Stroll finds it a handy way to keep in touch with employees as well. His Minneapolis company InternetVIZ publishes 20-plus industry journals for a readership of 500,000 business executives. "Our clients and staff are all over the globe," said Stroll. "When GoToMeeting came out, we jumped at it. It gives us reliability and speed, with the ability to bring groups of clients and staff together. Not a day goes by that we don't use it multiple times."
"Over 90 percent of GoToMeeting customers are small or mid-sized companies," said Brian Donahoo, Citrix Online senior vice president of products and services. "They simply don't have the sales and marketing budgets available to larger enterprises, so every dollar counts. The predictable, flat-fee pricing of GoToMeeting gives these companies the luxury of effortless, day-to-day contact with customers, prospects, and coworkers. In short, they are thrilled with their bottom-line savings in time and travel costs."
Citrix GoToMeeting provides all the functions necessary to have an efficient and collaborative online meeting via an extremely easy-to-use interface. Instant screen-sharing technology allows presenters to share PowerPoint slides, financial spreadsheets or any other PC application with all participants in real-time. Bundled integration with the most widely used communication applications like e-mail and instant messaging lets meeting participants quickly and effortlessly meet online without previous scheduling, complicated setup or any training. Citrix GoToMeeting also provides true 24-bit color representation of the presenter's PC so all illustrations, graphic-intensive applications and pictures are shown to meeting attendees in their native state. Security is the highest of any product available today, with 128-bit end-to-end AES encryption for complete online meeting confidentiality at no extra cost. Finally, Citrix GoToMeeting offers a free audio bridge, giving meeting participants immediate access to audio conferencing with no additional setup or expense.
Citrix GoToMeeting is for very small businesses that require a single-user account and up to 10 attendees per meeting. Citrix GoToMeeting Corporate is available for larger businesses that require a company-wide solution for a minimum of five named-user accounts with 25 attendees per meeting and an optional event-license upgrades for up to 200 attendees per meeting. A free evaluation of a multi-user Citrix GoToMeeting Corporate account is available at www.gotomeeting.com/corp. For more information about Citrix GoToMeeting, visit www.gotomeeting.com.
About Citrix Online
Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS) is the global leader in access infrastructure solutions and the most trusted name in secure access for enterprises and individuals. Nearly 50 million people in more than 120,000 organizations around the world use Citrix every day. Our software gives people secure and well-managed access to business information wherever it lives – on demand. Citrix customers include 100% of the Fortune 100 companies, 99% of the Fortune 500, and 92% of the Fortune Global 500. Based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Citrix has offices in 22 countries, and approximately 7,000 channel and alliance partners in more than 100 countries. For more information visit http://www.citrix.com.