White Pine Ships IP Conferencing Server for Linux

White Pine Software (http://www.wpine.com) announced that it is shipping a new version of its MeetingPoint conference server with support for Red Hat Linux version 6.1, Solaris and Windows NT

The MeetingPoint server enables companies to host real-time, Internet-based video communications. MeetingPoint was the industry's first H.323 standards-based conferencing server, and is the only server available for Linux. It allows multipoint group conferences with interoperability between users of standard H.323 clients including Microsoft NetMeeting, Intel ProShare, PictureTel LiveLAN, Polycom ViewStation, VCON Cruiser, White Pine CU-SeeMe Pro and others

The new MeetingPoint 4.0.2 increases the number of ports that can be supported per server, increasing scalability for large-scale deployments. One MeetingPoint server can now handle up to 50 H.323 users (compared to 25 previously), or up to 200 CU-SeeMe Pro or CU-SeeMe Web users.

"With the introduction of CU-SeeMe Web into the business-to-consumer market early this year, we anticipate an increased demand for MeetingPoint in large-scale and carrier-based deployments," said Roger Wallman, senior product manager for White Pine Software. "Now that we've beefed up the software to accommodate for larger port counts and released the first Linux version, we have an even more compelling solution for portals and service providers that want to host videochat services or provide face-to-face e-commerce or help desk services to their customers."

White Pine says they're in the process of transferring their White Pine Cafe server and other public MeetingPoint servers that support CU-SeeMe World (http://www.cuseemeworld.com) to the Linux platform.

MeetingPoint v4.0.2 began shipping in late December 1999 and is priced at at $8,995 per server. Large-scale deployments are priced on a per-port basis.

The company says MeetingPoint is the first H.323 (IP standard) application to become available for the Linux platform.