In a move to eliminate the most common problems with everyday conferencing, LoopUp, formerly Ring2, have launched a new remote meetings product for business professionals. This is coupled with a new finding that conferencing problems are costing UK and US businesses over $6.2 billion annually.

“It’s hardly surprising that people don’t particularly like doing conference calls,” said Steve Flavell, Co-CEO of LoopUp. “They’re fraught with annoyances and distractions – what are the dial-in details, who just joined, who’s speaking, where’s so and so, who has all the background noise, how do I share my screen – the list goes on. The world has come to accept these things as just part and parcel of conferencing. LoopUp is here to change that.”

The recent survey commissioned by LoopUp found that 23 percent of time spent on conference calls is wasted with difficulties getting the meeting started and in-call distractions, amounting to over $6.2 billion of lost value across UK and US enterprises.

LoopUp lets professionals keep focus on the business at hand by removing the mess inherent in audio conference calls and making richer content sharing easy.

Eighty-two percent of respondents  admitted that these distractions also hindered productivity, including their willingness to  participate actively. Furthermore, 83 percent of respondents said they would do more web  conferencing and richer collaboration if only the tools were easier to use.  LoopUp lets professionals keep focus on the business at hand by removing the mess  inherent in audio conference calls and making richer content sharing easy. It enables  adoption because it is compatible with how professionals work: users can always still dial in as they are accustomed, but can access LoopUp faster through extensions for smartphones,  Outlook and the Web. Professionals are able to:

• Schedule meetings from Outlook, smartphones or the Web
• Join by having the meeting call out instantly to a phone of their choice
• Be alerted via smartphone and desktop notifications when their first guest joins and
• be brought into a live readout of who’s on the meeting
• Access simple controls to add missing guests, mute distracting background noise
• and record the call
• Share their screen, as and when needed, without needing to go elsewhere

“Although conferencing has been around for decades, it still falls short in three areas: set-up time, taking attendance and the interstitial interruptions that disrupt collaborative discussions,” states Hyoun Park, Research Analyst, Aberdeen Group. “Traditional conferencing vendors have been content to provide a user experience that is opaque and  non-intuitive, at best. Because of this, much as Apple forever transformed the experience of  mobility through ease of use, there is an opportunity to provide an easier, more reliable, and  more consistent experience for the millions of employees who use conferencing tools on a regular basis.”

About LoopUp
LoopUp is an everyday remote meetings product that cuts through the chaos on conference calls and lets users naturally discover richer collaboration as and when they need it. LoopUp  was founded as Ring2 in London in 2003. Since then, thousands of clients across Europe,  the US and Asia-Pacific markets have adopted the LoopUp product, which extends to where  business professionals actually work…on smartphones (BlackBerry®, iPhone, Android TM ),  the Web and in apps like Outlook®, making it easy to have a better meeting experience. For  more information, visit
www.loopup.com or email pr@loopup.com