Yury Uskov is the CEO of iSpring, which sells software that converts PowerPoint files to SWF. I was pleased to get the opportunity to ask him some questions, because I’ve written before about using SWF presentations for marketing and sharing here and here. I hope you find my questions, and his answers, useful.
Why do people need to convert PowerPoint to SWF video files?
While PowerPoint has become the platform of choice for business presentations, it was never meant to be web-enabled. Converting PowerPoint content to Flash format, iSpring software lets you create presentations and courses as you usually do and makes them more compact, easy to deliver and view , and compatible with virtually any computer platform. Best of all, having presentations in Flash format allows you to avoid PowerPoint version incompatibility so that your presentation will look exactly the way you designed it for everyone.
Can you briefly explain the products you have and their different features?
The flagship product is iSpring Presenter that is specially designed for e-learning content authoring in PowerPoint. It lets you enhance presentations with quizzes, presenter video and LMS compliance. iSpring features a QuizMaker, a fast and easy tool for creating interactive and fully customizable
Flash quizzes enhanced with multimedia. iSpring Pro provides professional PowerPoint to Flash conversion and powerful features to tune your presentations. The output Flash presentations can be shared at iSpring Online portal that allows to receive detailed reports on presentation effectiveness and users’ activities. Only the iSpring Online service (not SlideBoom) that allows tracking online presentations: http://www.ispringsolutions.com/products/ispring_online.html
The server-side solution, iSpring SDK is also available, providing web sites and online applications with automatic PowerPoint to Flash conversion facilities.
You can learn more about iSpring products and view sample presentations and quizzes at iSpring web site www.ispringsolutions.com
There are many programs that convert PowerPoint to SWF files. What makes your programs stand out?
One of the main features of iSpring software is the highest accuracy of PowerPoint to Flash conversion. Currently it’s the only PPT to Flash tool that handles trigger animations and provides extensive support of the new features of PowerPoint 2010. It’s worthwhile to mention the ability to create a single Flash (.SWF) file with all external and multimedia resources embedded. Finally, I’d love to point that iSpring is available at the most moderate and flexible pricing in its class.
What do you see as the future of sharing PowerPoint files?
PowerPoint presentation trends are to become more engaging and collaborative with the online presentation sharing services. We all know that successful PowerPoint presentation should be well-designed and attractive but what is more important is that there should be a facility that will allow interaction with the audience and prompt viewers to communicate. Once you share PowerPoint presentations online it should become a realtime two-way conversation. And it’s the challenge for online presentation services to create a basis for online collaboration like editing, commenting, featuring presentations and bringing community to your slideshow online.