Fuse Box, the company behind some of the best collaboration tools on the Internet, announced this week the arrival of Fuze Meeting, the first web conferencing service that allows users to run a meeting from an iPad. Dubbed ‘meetings in a pinch,’ the Fuze Meeting app (iTunes link) supports Keynote presentations on and off the iPad, content uploads from third party apps such as Dropbox and SuharySync, and full duplex in-app VoIP so users don’t even need headphones to join a meeting.
Some of the cooler features supported by the app include support for HD video content and Fuze Box’s iPoint™ Laser Technology that transforms a user’s finger into a digital laser pointer, viewable by all meeting participants. Cloud storage enables users to pull any document or file directly from the server and also add content from the iPad straight into a meeting, then store it on the cloud for later. Both hosts and attendees can share, control, and present content from their iPad.
Chat integration with AIM, Yahoo, Google, OCS and others allows users to see who is online and bring them into a meeting from wherever they are and in-app account creation lets users meet exclusively from the iPad without ever booting up a desktop PC –- making the app a truly mobile solution.
Users who download the app before October 15 can use an upgraded version of the app free for 30 days, after which, accounts will convert to the always free lite account.
iBooks and games may be currently popular apps for the iPad, but if Apple’s latest game-changing device is going to have real legs it will one day have to be seen as a productivity tool. And productivity means business. The success of Fuze Meeting should be a good indicator of iPad’s potential value in the academic and enterprise spaces.
Here’s a promo video showing FuzeMeeting in action:
