Jon Udell notes an all too common problem in screen sharing software: an attempt to solve too many problems:

There's one thing I wish screensharing systems would do well: screensharing. I watch a lot of demos projected to my computer. It's always a struggle, both for the presenter and for me. Windows or Mac? IE or Firefox? Who has the latest version of the client? Who's the host? Which application is shared? Can you see my screen?

While we answer these questions, the first five or ten minutes of every meeting swirl down the drain. I've used every screensharing system and, from this perspective, they're roughly the same. None performs its basic function simply and well. All are determined to add whiteboards, chat, and filing systems. In principle these are useful features. In practice, for most people most of the time, they're just not usable.

This is a classic product management/marketing issue. You always want features that differentiate you from the competition - but at the same time, too much of that gives you MS Word - an application for which most people barely touch 10% of the available power. It's a problem across the industry, and not just in this product area.

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