Video meetings
businessinfomag.uk
magazine
24
continued...
On the face of it, video conferencing
seems like an ideal solution for
today’s globalised economy. The
ability to bring people together
across different geographical regions
saves time, reduces travel costs and
lowers carbon emissions, and, unlike
audio-conferencing, participants can
see each other’s facial expressions
and body language for a richer
communications experience. So, why
hasn’t video conferencing taken off in
the way that people expected?
One reason, according to Yealink UK
general manager SteveWatts, is the
perception that video-conferencing is
expensive and unaffordable for all but
the biggest corporations. However, he
suggests that this is now changing:
“With the availability of solutions
that won’t ‘break the bank’ and the
increasing adoption of video in the
consumer arena, affordable video-
conferencing solutions are gaining, and
will continue to gain, traction,” he said.
Another explanation for why video
conferencing didn’t take off initially is
that the technology was too difficult to
set up and use. Today, things are much
simpler. Because video-conferencing
solutions tend to be interoperable you
don’t have to use the same system
as the person you wish to speak to
and businesses have more freedom to
choose a solution at a price point that
suits them. Quality, too, has improved,
with HD video now standard.
Kim Nguyen, product marketing
manager at Cisco, a leader in
collaboration technology, has noticed the
effects of these changes. She said: “The
market has undergone a transition in the
past five years, when we’ve seen double-
digit growth year-over-year largely due
to Cisco’s ability to dramatically reduce
the costs of our systems, with the last
product refresh, without sacrificing high
quality and a reliable user experience.
This, along with new innovations that
make video-conferencing easier and
more intuitive to use, such as intelligent
cameras, the ability to integrate personal
devices and easy deployment, has
allowed Cisco to steadily increase our
share and see overall growth in the video
market.”
Nguyen predicts that in the future
50% of all conference rooms will have
VC systems. She is not the only one
bullish about the future. In its
VC
Endpoint Forecast 2014
,Wainhouse says
the number of meeting rooms worldwide
with a laptop or PC running a video-
conferencing device or service will rise
by 73%, from 5.6 million to 9.7 million
in 2018.
For Nguyen, social factors lie at the
root of these changes, in particular the
growing use of video in people’s personal
lives. “I heard a statistic recently that
Facebook hosts 100,000,000 hours
of video a day. That’s a staggering
Video conferencing is finally living up to its potential. Tayla Ansell explains why
A real see change
number to illustrate the growing
consumption of video.We think that’s
going to increasingly translate into the
workplace,” she said.
Mobile devices running popular apps
such as Facetime and Skype have been
key in familiarising consumers with video
and, as StarLeaf’s director of marketing
Michele Durban points out, they have
also enabled corporate VC systems to
extend their reach across an increasingly
mobile workforce.
“Today’s video solutions provide
businesses with the ability to broadly
deploy video as a software client on all
mobile devices, allowing remote and
travelling workers to remain engaged
and available at all times. It really has
become an anywhere, any time face-to-
face environment,” she said.
VC takes to the cloud
Cloud-based video conferencing services,
like BlueJeans, StarLeaf, Cisco Jabber
and Lifesize, have also had an impact,
by giving businesses more choice and
overcoming concerns about complexity
and cost.
Anne Marie Ginn, senior category
manager at Logitech for Business,
Collaboration in EMEA, said: “Video
conferencing is now a realistic option
SteveWatts,
general manager,
Yealink UK
StarLeaf gives
customers the
flexibility to buy
the conferencing
service that meets
their needs
Polycom RealPresence Centro
