ITM 301 - Cost Comparison of Web Conferencing

Cost Comparison of Web Conferencing

The two owners of Spinner Media Services Inc. wanted to cut travel costs and productivity losses (wasted time) and maintain the benefits of person-to-person collaboration. They decided to use Web conferencing internally for collaboration and externally for sales demonstrations to customers. Their two options were (1) a pay-per-use basis or (2) a per user licensing plan based on the number of seats or participants. The decision would depend on cost comparisons based on these data estimates:

• Approximately 400 meetings per year
• An average of 12 participants per meeting
• Each meeting lasting about one hour, which takes into consideration the need to get the meeting set up at least 15 minutes in advance and meeting for 45 minutes
• 250 unique participants, consisting of 50 employees and 200 customers

1. Research the costs of a pay-per-use plan vs. a per user licensing plan based on the number of seats or participants for Microsoft's LiveMeeting and Cisco's WebEx. Or evaluate two other pieces of web-based meeting software. Precise cost comparisons are difficult because there are so many variables, but a general cost analysis between LiveMeeting and WebEx or other software is feasible.
2. Design a spreadsheet that shows cost comparisons of the vendors' licensing options and the pay-per-use option using the data estimates.
3. Identify other criteria that should be taken into account when making such a decision (for example, vendor support or the ability to integrate with Outlook).
4. Based on your analysis, make a fully documented recommendation to the owners.

Prepare an Excel spreadsheet that fulfills the criteria for this SLP assignment. Be sure to use formulas and graphs within Excel so they can be reviewed. In a Word document, interpret the meaning of your analytical findings from the spreadsheet. The Word document should present the results to the owners of Spinner Media Services. Use analytics and graphs in your report and then describe the results. Remember you can copy spreadsheets and graphs into Word.