Building visuals into business with Videoconferencing products...

Videoconferencing products: building visuals into business

By Sarah Schmelling

As we discussed in last months newsletter, videoconferencing-both on the desktop and through conference-room-sized products-has been poised to be a strong market for years, but has yet to take off.

Now, however, as Internet technology continues to improve and more companies expand globally, talk is circulating once again about how the time for videoconferencing has finally arrived.

Has it? Certainly by the looks of products recently developed by major videoconferencing manufacturers-primarily Polycom Inc., Logitech and Tandberg-it would appear that the tide is turning that way.

On the low end, these companies offer small webcams directed toward consumers that can be purchased for under $100 and are mainly used to add video to instant messages.

On the high end, businesses can spend thousands of dollars to purchase advanced videoconferencing systems that include high-resolution screens, CD-quality audio and multimedia functionality for use in large meetings.

If this isnt proof enough that manufacturers are taking this market seriously, Polycom, the leading videoconferencing vendor, announced in October that it would offer a video software application for desktop computers called PVX.

This represents a big investment in a market Polycom had not yet approached. Many analysts see this announcement as a sign that videoconferencing, at least on the desktop, might be ready to fly.

The proof, however, is not yet in the numbers of products purchased. According to Elliot Gold, President of TeleSpan Publishing Corporation, a firm that conducts extensive research on the teleconferencing industry, the desktop market for business videoconferencing actually shrank over the last year.

At the same time, the numbers of group units, or high-end videoconferencing products, sold have been even more disappointing. For three years in a row, Gold says, businesses approached hitting the 100,000 mark of units purchased, but fell short.

Still, he says, as the numbers for 2004 roll in, there is a good chance that the 100,000 mark may be achieved. Better yet, Gold believes the webcam market may be poised for a rebound.

While webcams are currently being purchased primarily by consumers for grandmother-to-grandchild visits and Internet chat, what is happening though under the radar is that more business desktops are getting webcams and are using them to add a sense of visual presence to point-to-point, one-on-one business meetings over the network, Gold says.

And now that Polycom has entered the software market and will duke it out with other vendors in that area, the competition may create better products that more businesses want, and more opportunities for migration to the desk.

Gold explains that webcams will likely follow the path of instant messaging, where consumers who are also office workers use the application at home and then bring it to their jobs.

Theyll take their webcams and video to work next, he predicts. He also says that an interest in bundling as many applications as possible by computer manufacturers will lead to webcams being available in most desktop PCs.

In a few years, video may not necessarily be used by all office workers, but will be available on their computers should they need it.

In short, the technology and the products are out there, and the primary motivation for videoconferencing--to see a face behind the words--clearly still exists.

It may only be a matter of time before consumers bring their interest in webcams and face-to-face chat to the office--and, in the process, open up the videoconferencing market that has been promised for so long.