Citrix has started shipping a slimmed-down version of its GoToMeeting online meeting and video conferencing product that had been in beta testing since September.
GoToMeeting Essentials allows for one presenter and five attendees in a session and costs US$19 per month, or $182 per year, for unlimited usage, Citrix plans to announce on Tuesday. Meetings can't be recorded.
By contrast, the standard GoToMeeting product costs $49 per month, or $468 per year, for unlimited usage. Meetings can be recorded and can have 1 presenter and up to 25 participants.
Essentials is intended to attract customers that don't need all the features and capacity of the standard version of the product, and that find its price too high.
On the other end of the spectrum, Citrix is adding an option for customers that need to accommodate more people in a meeting. The new GoToMeeting 100 allows for sessions of up to 100 participants with 1 presenter for $69 per month.
Beyond the core GoToMeeting, Citrix also has a version of the product customized for online events and another one designed for e-learning.
The version for events, GoToWebinar, accommodates meetings of up to 100, up to 500 and up to 1,000 people. It starts at $99 per month, or $948 per year, for the 100-participant option with one presenter.
Meanwhile, GoToTraining is for sessions of up to 25 participants or up to 200 participants, and starts at $149 per month, or $1,428 per year.
Prices go up on all GoToMeeting products if customers buy more than one presenter license. If customers need 40 or more presenter licenses, they need to open a GoToMeeting corporate account.
Citrix is also announcing that a GoToMeeting app for the Windows Phone OS will be launched on Dec. 15. It will allow people to launch and join a meeting from Windows Phone smartphones.
Meanwhile, the company is beta-testing a new element in GoToMeeting, called GoToMeet.me, which hosts a personalized meeting page. They can use this page to start up a session with colleagues in an ad-hoc manner without formal scheduling or invitations. Customers interested in it can try it out at GoToMeet.me
The company has also made it possible for GoToMeeting customers to try out pre-release features by selecting them from a new menu option called Labs.
Citrix also improved GoToMeeting's Outlook plug-in and plans to introduce an integration with Google Calendar via a Chrome browser extension that will be released in about a month.
Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.