Vyew is a piece of browser-based collaboration and web conferencing software. Unlike many complicated collaboration suites, such as Microsoft Groove, all this requires you to have on machines you wish to collaborate with it a web browser with Adobe Flash 9 installed. They were recently nominated for the Webware awards.

It has the essential features of any collaboration package: the ability to share files, create presentations and and the ability to hold conference calls.

Presentations and file-sharing are done in the guise of ‘VyewBooks’ which are essentially pages which you can embed Office files, images, audio, video and Acrobat files in. VyewBooks can be stored in your account or displayed on any webpage as a ‘Vweylet’. To be honest, I don’t see the need for all of these names when the terms page (or indeed presentation) and widget would suffice!

The site also allows you to custom colour schemes and branding, providing you pay for an account instead of using a free one. Commercial packages start at $6.95 per month, however to get colour schemes you must pay an extra $5 monthly.

You are also limited to 4 Vyewbooks on the free package, which is ad-supported, but that rises to 10 or 20 on commercial packages. An extra 20 may be purchased for $5 per month. Also, uploads are limited to 10 which rises to 50 on one paid package and 100 on another.

All packages, including the free one, come with SSL log-in.

It is extremely reasonable value and the fact a free package is offered is always great! Conferencing calling also makes this a good deal. However, you can conference call free normally through Skype and as for collaboration a wiki has never hurt anyone! They have a nice comparison chart comparing them to their competitors, check it out.

Tags: conferencing, vyew, collaboration, web2.0, web2, web 2, web 2.0