Many videoconferencing solution providers are adopting Microsoft's NetMeeting 2.1 as the backbone of collaborative communications between nodes in a videoconference. NetMeeting includes audio and video capabilities, but most vendors develop proprietary interfaces for their videoconferencing products. Third-party vendors use NetMeeting for its collaborative capabilities, which include chat sessions, file transfer, application sharing, and a white board.
NetMeeting uses an Internet Locator Service (ILS) server as a directory of which users are participating in a NetMeeting session. After you log on to an ILS server, you can see who else is logged on, whether the other participants have audio and video capabilities, and whether they are sharing any applications with other users. For more information about NetMeeting, go to http://www.microsoft.com/netmeeting.