Video conferencing software house White Pine Software Inc has made its long-anticipated move into server-side software, with the launch of MeetingPoint, a product it calls the industry’s first H.323 compliant multimedia conference server software. The loss-making company looks to be pinning its future on the new product, its first home-grown server side offering, which could be crucial to its videoconferencing ambitions. MeetingPoint works in conjunction with White Pine’s established CU-SeeMe client offering, adding up to a full client-server package for real-time group conferencing over IP networks. Other video conferencing clients using H.323, such as Microsoft Corp’s NetMeeting and Intel Corp’s Internet Videophone, are also supported. White Pine is aiming the product at Internet service providers, and has projects planned with UUNet Technologies Inc, CompuServe Corp and Time Warner Inc. The firm’s new client agnostic strategy is a recognition of the number of rival offerings now available on the client side, admits White Pine president Killco Caballero. He claims the company has several months advantage over its rivals, and hopes to win business from the emerging consumer market of video chat. Caballero predicts that White Pine will return to profitability by the end of the first quarter of next year. The company is still looking for a new chief executive officer, following the departure of former chief executive and chairman Howard Berke last June (CI No 3,176). Current president Caballero is really the chief technology officer. A MeetingPoint Conference Server internal license costs $4,000 for 10 users or $20,000 for 100 users with a 100 user commercial license priced at around $35,000.
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