Software to help with a distributed team

[GuOddian]

Hi!

I'm after a software component to help me run a distributed team of developers and support technicians. We run over several states of my country and often spend many hours a day on the phone talking ot each other.

Ideally I would like to find a peice of software that would assist in remote tele conferencing allowing me to share desktop applications or my whole desktop as well as providing conference tools similar to netmeeting but more robust and far more simple.

Any ideas? My preference is for an open source product but I've been unable to find one as yet.

Cheers
Daniel

[MrViggy]

Back when I worked from home, we used WebEx which worked out pretty well with 5+ people all at different locations.

What's wrong with Net Meeting (just out of curiosity)? We use it where I work now, and it seems fine with 10+ people.

Viggy

[dglienna]

Groove lets different people sync files whenever someone comes online. You create rules in advance.

[edijs.vee]

i suppose things like Skype or MSN msgr don't fit you?

[goatslayer]

Is citrix a solution you could use? if not citrix then the alternatives on this slashdot aticle might be of use:

http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/...6/001224.shtml

However, my knowledge is only citrix and using this I imagine you will still need to coordinate your attempts with some sort of distributed whiteboard, of which I don't know any applications.

[GuOddian]

Thanks for the feedback. We do use Netmeeting now, however it's restrictive and takes a while to setup. It doesn't store contact lists for example. Unfortunately external server based technology is out of the question (MSN, Skype etc).

[dglienna]

Groove runs on each client. The server just identifies who's online for sync.