November 20, 2006
Unyte vs AIM Pro: Desktop Sharing - I'll Show You Mine
Earlier, I mentioned Unyte, a Skype plugin that allows collaboration (desktop sharing), web conferencing, and more. I downloaded and installed Unyte and took it through a few tests. The interface is clean, and it appears easy to find everything. You can pick through your Skype contact list and decide whom you want to share with (though you need Unyte+ for more than one person). A comparison of Unyte to AIM Pro's desktop sharing is given below.
I tried it in both modes, and it's fairly similar to AIM Pro's desktop sharing features. (I ran Unyte + Skype on my desktop, and another Skype account on my laptop.) The main differences:
- Unyte's interface can be in one of 12 languages, including English. Though to be honest, I never checked for this in AIM Pro.
- Unyte has two modes: a display share only, and a controlled share between all parts. I.e., remote desktop control.
- AIM Pro will let you see the Windows start bar at the bottom of the screen. Unless I missed it, Unyte doesn't have that.
- Unyte is integrated with Skype, so you can easily determine sharing.
- AIM Pro only shares one on one; at least, I don't think you can have a conference share.
- Unyte lets you pick what to share, out of the applications already running. But if you pass control over to another person, theycan start an app by clicking on your desktop icon (remotely).
- Unyte actual shared session runs in an Internet Explorer window on the other party's computer, so they don't need Unyte. With AIM Pro, the shared session starts up in a browser (mine started in Firefox) then switches to a separate window. However, this could still be a browser window, as Firefox allows this through XUL. The documentation says that it'll work with IE, Firefox or Safari on any platform, so it must be defaulting to IE on my laptop.
These are the differences that stand out for me. A few other features are that Unyte lets you quickly click a checkbox to turn off all sharing. You can be selective of which applications you use. The other parties don't need Unyte, as noted above, but they need Skype 2.0 or later. The host can only use Windows 2000/2003 or XP.
Overall, I'm pretty impressed. I can see immediate applications of this, as I hire a few writers from across the world, and I can very quickly give them a live training session.
I haven't tried Skype 3.0 for Windows Beta, so I cannot comment on Skype's own desktop sharing features, or whether they'll affect Unyte in any way. Unyte is Skype-certified, so I'm assuming Skype isn't going to directly compete with their own partners. (More on that once I find out details.)
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