There’s nothing like a Pepcom event in New York to get you in a CES frame of mind, and though I have a number of products I want to write up, Fuze Box tops my list. You’re forgiven if you haven’t heard of Fuze Box yet. The company’s Fuze Meeting app only started making the press rounds in the last few weeks, and the big-news product update – native video conferencing in the app – won’t launch until the new year. Fuze Meeting will support HD video conferencing across multiple platforms. Right now the web meeting version of the product (no native video conferencing) has iPhone, Android, and Blackberry apps, but a dedicated iPad app is coming, and the demo last night showed video on a Galaxy Tab as well.
If you think video conferencing sounds boring, think again. Unlike a big (expensive) Cisco enterprise solution, Fuze Meeting is in the realm of an impulse buy. According to the rep I talked to last night, the company has an option coming so that you can purchase a one-day pass for $9.99. Only the host pays that money. Everyone else who joins in gets on for free. Monthly fees range from $29 to $49 depending on the features you want.
The interface for Fuze Meeting is awesome. You get multiple video windows (supposedly up to eight, though that seems a bit impractical), and you can even stream high-def video to share with the other people on your conference call. (Option for a joint Sling-like experience here?) The video I saw last night was running at thirty frames per second. No other specs at the moment, but I expect we’ll learn more as we get closer to launch date.
Fuze is clearly going after the small-business market with its video conferencing solution, but I can see small business defined all the way down to individual web workers. At $9.99, why not use it on occasion as a premium alternative to one-on-one Skype or iPhone Facetime?