VAPPS RELEASES HIDEF CONFERENCING PLUG-IN FOR OUTLOOK
Audioconferences With In-the-Room Sound Quality Can be Scheduled, Invitations Sent Through World Leader in E-mail/Calendar/Contact Software
HOBOKEN, N.J.–July 1, 2008—Vapps, Inc., provider of affordable, flat-rate audioconferencing services with lifelike, in-the-room sound quality, today announced the release of the HiDefConferencing.com plug-in for Microsoft Outlook®, the e-mail/calendaring program open and running on more desktops and mobile devices than any other.
With the new plug-in, two buttons link the Outlook client to the HiDefConferencing.com service and its functions:
“Schedule HiDef Conference” opens up a regular Outlook meeting invitation. From this familiar interface, users can see in-company contacts’ availability; select attendees from in-company and Outlook Contact lists; select other attendees; set the meeting time; and send invitations with automatically entered meeting details.
“Manage HiDef Account” opens up the www.hidefconferencing.com Web site in which HiDef Conferencing plans can be chosen, payments made, and conferencing preferences chosen.
During the meeting, the moderator has full use of conferencing controls and preferences via the HiDef Conferencing Web site. These include such choices as mute/unmute and record, and whether conferences should remain open after the moderator has left.
Meeting details typically include both Skype and PSTN conference numbers for attendees to call, since Vapps’ HD-C service uniquely conferences in both PSTN and Skype endpoints. Those attending via Skype enjoy unprecedented sound quality through the Vapps platform’s wideband connectivity.
Better-than-phone sound quality
“Wideband” connectivity transmits a frequency range of 16 KHz, more than four times richer than the 3.5 kHz of traditional PSTN copper wiring. Result: attendees hear four times better than they do over traditional telephones, feel more “present” and can better detect who is speaking. And as with any IP-to-IP voice call, they avoid local and international calling charges, a particular benefit to an international phone conference.
The expanded audio range also helps listeners understand speakers who have accents, and non-native speakers understand the conference language. In any language, it promotes comprehension and retention by alleviating the ear fatigue of long phone conferences, and transmits more of the speaker’s inflection, nuance, attitude and even physical motion at a table or around the room.
“Outlook is by far the environment best known and most used for scheduling meetings all over the world,” said Ben Lilienthal, Vapps CEO. “People already know how to use it to choose attendees, send meeting invitations and accept them. Because of this—and because a growing number of those meetings will seek to avoid actual travel—it is the logical place for us to put links to our groundbreaking, great-sounding conferencing service.”
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About Vapps, Inc.
Vapps, Inc., based in Hoboken, N.J., provides managed audioconferencing solutions to the SMB, enterprise and service provider markets using its patent-pending, wide-band audioconferencing technology. Founded in 2003 by Ben Lilienthal and Jerry Norton, Vapps' flagship service is its High-Definition Conferencing (HD-C), the first and only high-definition, flat-rate audioconference offering that can conference together a mixed-participant group of PSTN phone and Skype users.
For Skype-using participants, HD-C transmits a much richer, more “in-the-room” voice quality than can be achieved with traditional phones, dramatically improving the productivity of team collaboration. Vapps’ fees for an unlimited number of conferences and conference minutes start at a fixed $25 per month for 10 attendees and scale with the number of participants. For more information, please visit Vapps at http://www.vapps.com.
Contact:
Sue Huss
Comunicano, Inc.
sue.huss@comunicano.com
619-379-4396
