Today, I have had the opportunity to test i-Voyager 3D, a fully immersive conferencing and collaboration space that directly competes with the likes of SmartMeeting and Tixeo.

i-Voyager, first reviewed here in November of last year, is a very advanced 3D application which is capable to manage simultaneously multiple live avatars, multiple camera viewpoints, full-duplex VoIP, video and the full gamut of typical web conferencing facilities you expect to see in an enterprise solution.

In fact, especially in light of its steep price, i-Voyager positions itself as a competitive solution only for those institutions who have a specific need for a French-based interface, as well as for those who take specific advantage from some of the unique real-time 3D capabilities of this tool.

i-Voyager integrates all of the main facilities you would expect from a standard conferencing tool including a full text chat module, VoIP, video, co-browsing, application sharing, collaborative whiteboarding and polling.

But the most interesting aspect of i-Voyager is that this conferencing space is a fully immersive 3D space where you move, walk from room to room, seat next to other people and watch a spectacular panoramic screen.

This by itself provides a visually magnificent setting for an online event, conference or presentation where the visual aspect of the delivery plays a prominent role.

The super-wide screen utilized inside the virtual conference room is the equivalent of three large screens placed next to each other, and each one can elegantly accommodate images from the whiteboard or from any application or document being shared.

The Text chat offers minimum features and the quality of and VoIP leaves still something to be desired. Interruptions and few other audio disturbances seem to happen easily when carrying out other computer intensive tasks like app sharing or video.

Each participant can set and customize her own avatar, and though the interface and the available pre-set avatar selections are really nothing to tell your friends about, after a while the looks start to play a secondary role and their expressivity, mobility and capability to capture different "views" becomes definitely more important.

Each avatar can also perform a number of pre-determined mini-actions, like laughing, saying yes or no, asking permission to intervene, pointing in different directions and quite a few more. These work very well and are quite easy to activate on the end-user side.

Movement is also rather straightforward, as clicking and dragging with the mouse does rapidly take you wherever you want. Tele-porting is finally a "reality" within the i-Voyager world, and when you have inexperienced or new participants to guide into a different conference room or to a dedicated showcase area, you can just "tele-port" all of them there instantly.

Once you are inside one of the multiple meeting spaces that can make up an i-Voyager setup, not only you can choose exactly where to seat, but you can also watch the event from any of 5 different camera viewpoints, including a freely controllable fly-over camera.

Live video feed and the five camera views controls on top

It is easy to look at yourself both from the front and from behind as well as spotting the name of any other person by simply hovering the mouse on his or her avatar.

If well coordinated and prepared with extreme attention to details, i-Voyager could host some pretty spectacular events and conferences at least until these technologies do not become more well known. But for now you can rest assured that a good demo, with a qualified PC of this technology will leave your audience quite amazed.

Unfortunately, as of now, i-Voyager can host a maximum of 20 people in a room and is therefore limited to rather small meetings and presentations.

The price is very high, running at EU 200/day for 10 people or at over EU 6,000 for a year license (10 people). (Full pricing rates here.)

I may be wrong, but I think that it will be very difficult for this technology to compete in today's international marketplace at this price level. Even if i-Voyager was competing with the likes of WebEx or Microsoft, it could not bear to have such a price tag. Let's not forget that this is in fact a new product, from a new company, with no international established track, and therefore it is very difficult, outside of a few protected and safe internal markets that i-Voyager may have access to in its country, to compete seriously for a tangible slice of the booming online presentation and conferencing market.

The software is available in English and French and online demos, plus a 5-person 1-day free trial are both available to anyone who wishes to sign-up.

Please go give it a good try and share with us what you think of it.

Minimum configuration needed:
Windows PC
PIII or AMD 1Ghz, Video card 32 Mo
Speakers and microphone
256 Kbps Internet connection