User:DustyRain/Sandbox/Archive 2

WebTrain Communications is a privately-held Canadian company established in 1999 that hosts web conferencing services intended for vertical markets.

WebTrain was recognized by PC Magazine in 2002 as a contender to major web conferencing providers.

Colin Hansen (Minister of Economic Development for British Colimbia) made special mention of WebTrain in the Information and Communication Technologies sector investment in British Columbia publication.

In 2006, WebTrain was nominated at the BCTIA Technology Impact awards ceremony as one of the three most successful technology startup companies in British Columbia. 700 technology companies were represented at the awards ceremony.

The Saskatchewan Government (Ministry of Education - Technology Supported Learning) states "WebTrain is a powerful and exciting technology that enables students and teachers to communicate visually and verbally in an online, virtual classroom".

The Society for Technical Communication published a Webinar Matrix document which compares different aspects and features of the product to other vendors.

History
The WebTrain concept was developed in 1998 by Gary Campbell for the purpose of reducing training costs for off-site business clients. The idea was expanded to include additional communication services. Six different communication products were released after two years of initial development. Each of the software products provided a specific set of features related to its intended market. There was a call alert monitor, a free PC-PC telephone application, a virtual business meetings application, a webinar presentation application, a virtual conference center application, and a web based virtual classroom application. All products were VoIP based. After releasing the different products in 2001, it was found that clients wanted a single product that provided all of the features offered by each of the separate applications and services. In 2003, WebTrain released version 1 of their Communicator product, merging the feature sets of the separate applications into a single hosted application. Version 2 was released Feb 11, 2003. Version 3 of the Communicator was released August 6, 2006. The v3 French and English version release was a complete rewrite of the existing product, utilizing .NET for the back end meeting services. Web service API's for back end integration and OEM white labeling were also provided in the v3 release. On April 4 2008, version 4 of the Communicator was announced, the expected release date (as stated on their website) is sometime in June or July 2008.

Dr. Douglas Hallet is the CEO and Chairman of WebTrain. Mr. Hallet's more notable achievements include receiving a medal from the United Nations relating to his research and discovery of dioxins in the Great Lakes. He was senior scientific advisor to Environment Canada Ontario region, holds numerous patents of his inventions (PBC destructor  , UV Water Disinfector ) and and took ELI Eco Logic public as CEO.

Reverse takover
On November 20th, 2000, Raystar Enterprises Ltd. announced their intentions of a reverse takeover transaction. The transaction failed as the Internet tech bubble bursted during the transaction period.

Technology
WebTrain is a single conferencing product (the same product is used by meeting hosts, presenters and participants) for varying uses (meetings, training, education, webinars, etc.) The product is developed for Windows, and embedded in Internet Explorer, FireFox, Netscape 8 or Opera. Because their Voice-over-IP is low bandwith (6300b/sec), a high bandwidth connection is not required. A persistent outbound SSL connection is required by client software while in a meeting. The service is hosted at the MCI Worldcom colo location in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Security
Meetings are SSL based; non-secure meetings are not supported. A paid security review was performed by IBM security. The McAfee Automated Web Safety Testing Results site reports no security concerns relating to the software.

Impact

 * Engineers Without Borders has used the service to conduct virtual meetings relating to their proverty mandates.
 * The Military Order of the Purple Heart Foundation uses the product to assist war veterans to re-enter the workforce.
 * John Hopkins University uses the product for assisting the blind and speech impaired.


 * The North Arkansas College uses the product to teach Visual Basic computer programming.
 * Auction companies have used the product to broadcast live auctions (real estate, heavy equipment, aircraft) enabling virtual participants to hear the auctioneer while bidding against the floor and other Internet bidders using a real time java bidding applet.


 * Language schools use WebTrain's language board to teach second languages such as French.
 * Health Canada uses the product for various health issues such as best practice workshops - Early Intervention, Outreach and Community Linkages for Women with Substance Use Problems.