Videoconferencing Market Shifts Focus from Telepresence and Looks Towards Mobile

There is a current shift within the videoconferencing market away from high-cost telepresence systems towards less expensive mobile systems, according to Andrew Davis, of Wainhouse Research.

During the company’s 2012 Boston CSP Summit, Davis explained that within a short time, mobile applications would be taking the lead on other videoconferencing options, such as room-based systems and telepresence. The need for telepresence is predicted to decline quickly over the next few years as the market becomes saturated with alternative options.

Davis also noted that workers in the IT industry are away from their office more than 75 percent of the time. Businesses will need to cater to this by providing anytime, anywhere connectivity that includes videoconferencing capabilities to meet these employee’s requirements.

"Videoconferencing is entering the mainstream of enterprise use at the personal [mobile] level, not at the telepresence or room-based system level," he said.

He also emphasized that younger employees are requesting this type of mobile applications. This should encourage companies to offer them in order to attract tech-savvy, younger workers.

The growing mobility trend is reflected by Polycom. The videoconferencing leader recently launched a mobile videoconferencing app that can be run on Android tablets and iPads. Polycom's RealPresence Mobile is designed to enable videoconferencing on tablet devices, permitting mobile employees to participate in videoconferencing wherever their location.

This application can connect up to 16 calls. Polycom is offering it for free at the Google Play app market and the Apple App Store. Several of Polycom’s competitors including Vidyo and Cisco are already offering their own mobile videoconferencing applications.

Davis pointed out that the videoconferencing industry is up against a number of challenges, the number one being interoperability. He expressed disappointment in the fact that current standards are up to 15 years old, resulting in a number of interoperability problems.

In an attempt to ease the market’s frustration, Polycom has also launched its RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite. This application allows interoperability between different videoconferencing company’s systems, extending to Facebook, Skye, Google Talk and others through an easy-to-use browser.

Polycom also intends to utilize an open video protocol called scalable video coding (SVC). This is predicted to reduce the costs of videoconferences that involve large groups and could decrease the cost from as much as $15,000 per connection to less than $1,000 per connection.

Keeping up with the pace in the field of video coding, Vidyo intends to collaborate with Samsung in a proposal for scalable extensions of the next-generation code. This is known as high efficiency video coding (HEVC) protocol.

According to Vidyo, HEVC protocol is forecast to halve the bit-rate necessary to deliver same-quality video as the SVC protocol. If the protocol meets expectations, it should greatly improve the performance of video communication over wireless and Internet networks. (CU) Link 

2 Responses to "Videoconferencing Market Shifts Focus from Telepresence and Looks Towards Mobile" - Add Yours

Art Rosenberg 10/11/2012 8:08:21 AM

With mobility, the need to make conferencing multimedia will increase, simply because conference participants won't all want or can't be "on camera." However, they can still participate in in real-time with voice conferencing, as well as have access to one-way video viewing.

This perspective was one that I raised with Avaya when they first announced their acquisition of Radvision, and they acknowledged that option would be provided. I am sure that receiving one-way video will not have the same impact as transmitting two-way video. Comment?

Tony Cannata 10/11/2012 7:31:12 PM

You hit the nail on the head, Art. Mobility in the workplace (ie. BYOD - ''Bring Your Own Device'') will continue to demand a steep increase in multimedia, making the UC workplace more engaging for all participants. I use the term ''engaging'' loosely here, as some remote employees may be reluctantly engaged with their boss on a video call, wherein the past they were able to get away with just a phone call from their manager checking in on them. Remote salespeople, for instance won't be able to hide the fact that they took ''happy hour'' three hours early on a Monday if they're on a video call through their smartphone.

Reversely, one-way video is being used by physicians to make house calls. When they can check in on patients from a PC or tablet, they can free up their schedule to focus on those that need their immediate attention. In the past, these tech-hip doctor's schedules were clogged with routine visits that can now be accomplished in minutes from a bedside camera at the patient's home.

Now with Polycom's RealPresence ClousAXIS anyone can get in on the action. If you don't have a Facebook, Google, or Skye account, chances are that you don't have any friends or co-workers anyway, so you're not missing out on much. For the rest of the developed world, anything is possible: teens can nit-pick what each other is wearing just minutes before the prom, while the bookworms collaborate on a Computer Science mid-term the next morning. This isn't just for business applications, and rightfully so the kids should get involved. Because by the time they grow up and stop squeezing pimples, video conferencing will truely be ubiquitus in the workplace.