t families and how they inter-relate: How does the product fit within the desktop conferencing categories? Is it part of a family of products? Do members of the family interoperate across the entire offering? Can multiple conference types (e.g., shared whiteboard, applications sharing) be part of the same conference? What is the upward migration path between the lowest-cost product in the family and the most expensive? Evaluating and Buying a Personal Conferencing System What are the plans to continually enhance the product family? Is the GUI consistent across all members of the product family? Network Considerations Network infrastructure is probably the biggest barrier to widespread adoption of personal conferencing, particularly videoconferencing. Ethernet, on the other hand, can handle compressed motion video rates with little problem, but does not offer isochronous service (guaranteed Real-Time delivery at a continuous bit rate). Various IETF protocols designed for IP networks (802.1Q, 802.1P, RTP/RTCP and RSVP) alleviate latency problems, but many networks incorporate routers and hubs that have not been configured to run these protocols. ISDN BRI to the desktop is fast enough for small screen applications, but it is only partially deployed, and is becoming eclipsed by Internet (or at least IP) deployment. Again, a few questions might help in comparing products: What type of transmission system does the product require? Will it work well over switched or dedicated digital networks and LANs? What switched digital network interfaces does the product support? In the case of ISDN, is the product N-ISDN-1 compliant? Does it ship with the network termination device (NT-1) and terminal adapter (TA)? Can videoconferencing, document conferencing or screen-sharing exchanges be conducted over the Internet? Provide detail. Does the product work over POTS lines? Do the products work over wireless networks? Which ones? Does the product offer a client for wireless enabled PDAs? Data Conferencing Capabilities Ask about mult