Survey Reveals Conferencing Problems Cost UK and US Business More Than $6.2 Billion Annually.

LONDON and SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, 2012: In a move to eliminate the most common problems with everyday conferencing, LoopUp™, formerly Ring2™, today introduced 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.”

To take the pulse of working professionals, LoopUp commissioned a survey by IBOPE Zogby International. The study 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. 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 in 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.”

LoopUp commissioned IBOPE Zogby International to survey 500 business professionals in the US and 500 business professionals in the UK during March 2012. The margin of error was +/- 3.2 percentage points.

About LoopUp

LoopUp provides simple, pain-free business conference calls and online meetings. We help thousands of businesses host better remote meetings, without classic annoyances such as not knowing who’s joined, background noise, and difficulties sharing content. LoopUp alerts you when your first guest arrives, calls out to you when you wish to join, shows you who’s on and who’s speaking, and lets you share your screen with a click. LoopUp sells direct to the enterprise market and via distribution partners including BT, SmarTone, CSL, Cable & Wireless Communications and 3 Hong Kong. For more information, visit loopup.com or email pr@loopup.com.