Breeze Live is a module of the Macromedia Breeze platform offering meetings and instant collaboration over the Web. Other components of the Breeze platform not reviewed here include Breeze Presentation, for publishing on-demand content, and Breeze Training, for online course delivery and management.
For Web-based meetings, Breeze Live holds its own against such competitors as WebEx and Microsoft Live Meeting. With Breeze you can create and produce slides starting with PowerPoint; add audio, video, and animation; and publish in Macromedia Flash for live audiences or on-demand delivery over the Web.
Because it is so easy to use and is incorporated into the PowerPoint toolbar with a plug-in, Breeze makes it a cinch to create live shared meetings, set up team collaboration, and provide instruction or organized delivery of information. The application integrates with learning management systems and complies with the SCORM and AICC standards. (Note: You may still have to tweak the content to work with your LMS.)
Meeting management
As with most live meeting programs, the goal is to get to the meeting room. Breeze facilitates that with Breeze Manager, which is accessible from your Web browser or the Breeze link in PowerPoint. Once you log in, you’re ready to schedule a meeting with a description, date, time, and duration. You can decide whether a meeting will be open to all participants or just the people on a registered guest list. Breeze offers the flexibility for presenters to grant admission to guests individually.
You can also register users that are in your “account” and assign them access permission as presenters or participants. Invitations to join the meeting are sent via email, which you can send from your own email program, using the pre-filled message template or by creating your own.
The organization of screens in the Breeze Manager appeals to me. It provides menu tabs across the top of the screen in logical order: content, courses, meetings, users, reports, and account maintenance.
I work with software every day so my idea of what’s intuitive may be different than most people’s. As a test, I borrowed a secretary from a client and watched her create a meeting. She stepped through the menu choices as if they had been designed for her. Even an infrequent user should be able to jump into the Breeze Manager and navigate with ease.
Usage
Breeze
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lets you to easily upload and fully share files from within the application
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accepts all images in standard JPEG format
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enables video in the standard format for Macromedia Flash Player (FLV)
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offers quizzes and interactive polling, seating charts, chat, whiteboard, and application and desktop sharing
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allows multiple presenters to share meeting control
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can save whiteboard content in meeting rooms and let you modify it later
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can record meetings for on-demand viewing and let you edit them.
To augment PowerPoint with audio and animation, you import audio files and set timings to synchronize animation with slides and audio. A presenter’s area allows you to review content that you upload for your meeting.
While Breeze Live is powerful in itself, it’s only if you have the Breeze Presentation module that you can make real use of the content library. With it you can search archived meeting content based on keyword search and locate and play back the recording. You can even add Breeze content to your corporate search engine.
If I wrote the script for an “extreme makeover” of an online meeting and training product, it would include the ability to set up custom rooms for a particular presenter or audience. Breeze Live rooms can be reused with specific settings through custom “pods” so they are ready for a meeting or presentation set to your preferred style.
These pods are modular units you can customize with features such as chat, screen sharing, and a Flash movie for real-time viewing. Your company can build pods to match your meeting style or for particular classes or clients.
Help and support
Online help is adequate, but you have to know what you’re looking for. There’s a good collection of searchable resources online at Macromedia.com, including a product manual and a Getting Started with Breeze tutorial. Techies will love the development tools available for programmers and IT staff to fully customize Breeze features using application program interfaces. Phone support is available during standard business hours.
System requirements
Breeze runs on Windows 98, ME, XP, NT 4.0, and 2000 and on Mac system 8.6 or later. It requires Internet Explorer 4, Netscape 4.5 or later, or AOL 7, or one of various other browsers. The Windows versions require the Breeze Producer PowerPoint plug-in.
Recommendation
Breeze Live may seem to be on par with similar e-meeting software, but it stacks up as a superior choice for the blend of features, simplicity, and seamless integration. In my testing, the application provided truly smooth performance, removing the fear factor for new or inexperienced users. Breeze Live delivers meetings that allow users to focus on the content, not on the computer.