Circle Twelve Introduces New Video Conferencing and Immersive Multi-user Collaboration System

Circle Twelve Inc. announced availability of a new product designed to support meetings between two remotely located teams. Called “DiamondTouch Immersion”, it combines the multi-user interactive DiamondTouch table with a second display, vertically mounted, for multipoint video conferencing.

The DiamondTouch Immersion system consists of a 42-inch horizontal interactive tabletop computer display for sharing documents and other digital information, a 42-inch vertically-mounted display with integrated cameras and speakers, plus furniture with seating for four. With an internet connection, two DiamondTouch Immersion systems connect to support meetings between two remotely located teams.

“We wanted to integrate our multi-user touch technology with cloud-based video conferencing equipment and raise the bar in terms of the immersive telepresence experience, and I believe we have come up with something compelling,” said Adam Bogue, founder of Circle Twelve.

“Of course, you can see hear the people at the other location, but with DiamondTouch Immersion everyone can interact simultaneously with documents and images. In fact, you can literally see the remote collaborators reach out of the HD video conferencing screen and onto the shared interactive tabletop.”

The DiamondTouch Immersion system features several patented technologies, including:

• Multi-camera subsystem for capturing the faces of the people sitting around the table. The subsystem consists of two miniature cameras mounted directly onto the vertical display and software that finds the faces, creating a single composite video stream that can be shown at the remote DiamondTouch Immersion location using popular PC-based video conferencing applications such as Skype (Microsoft), WebEx (Cisco), RealPresence (Polycom), Sametime(IBM) or Google Hangouts. The software also allows users to provide a text label for each person, so the remote collaborators have a name with each face.
• Multi-user whiteboarding software for sharing and interacting with content. Built on the multi-user DiamondTouch table technology which has the ability to identify who is touching where, the whiteboarding software allows all users at both locations to touch and interact simultaneously using personalized annotation tools.
• Immersive visualization software for indicating which remote collaborator is interacting on the tabletop. When one of the remote participants draws on the screen, a virtual arm with an extended finger appears at the leading edge of the line as it is being drawn. The arm comes from the direction of the person who is interacting, and it appears with a colored “glow” that matches the frame of that person’s image on the Internet video conferencing screen so that it is clear who is doing what.

“The cost of online video conferencing equipment is justified based on the time and money saved on business travel. But to replace actual face-to-face meetings, just watching slide presentations does not cut it,” added Adam Bogue. “Business teams need tools to support spontaneity, brain-storming and decision making. DiamondTouch Immersion provides this because it lets everyone interact together.”

Initially, DiamondTouch Immersion will be targeted for use by large and mid-sized corporations with engineering, marketing and management teams that are spread over two or more locations. Systems are available for purchase directly from Circle Twelve.

Article Source: Circle Twelve introduces new video conferencing and immersive multi-user collaboration system

Vodafone to launch video conferencing service

Vodafone will soon launch a multipoint video conferencing service on a pay-per-use model.

Companies will not have to invest in a cloud-based video conferencing facility. Instead, they use a secure line provided by Vodafone and pay only for the number of hours they have used the service, according to Suphal Mehrotra, Head-National Corporate, Vodafone Business-Services.

The mobile service provider will provide end-to-end service, including the hardware, to facilitate the service, he told Business Line.

Mehrotra said the service would help small and medium-size companies, which could not afford to spend Rs 10-20 lakh to set up a full-fledged Internet video conferencing facility, he said.

Vodafone will provide the service on a hosted platform on the cloud and provide the bridge to enable the online video conferencing. The service is still in the proof of concept stage, he said.

Mehrotra said the demand for mobile-related service from SMEs has increased substantially. They seek a similar kind of service provided to large companies, but at an affordable price.

Research say that the SME market for telecom service in India is estimated at Rs 10,500 crore and likely to grow at 8.1 per cent to Rs 16,800 crore by 2017-18.

Article Source: Vodafone to launch video conferencing service

SPAR UK hails cloud-based video conferencing cost savings

High street grocery chain claims cloud-based approach to collaboration has saved it money.

High street grocery store chain SPAR UK has credited cloud with allowing the firm’s IT department to finally push ahead with its multipoint video conferencing deployment ambitions.

The company has five distribution centres dotted about the UK in Cornwall, Belfast, Dundee, Preston and the West Midlands that oversee the running of 2,400 SPAR stores.

When we took that to the board, they thought we had missed something off the figures because it was so much cheaper this time around.

In the past, the firm’s executives tended to spend a lot of their time on the road, travelling to meetings at one of these five sites, at a great cost to the business.

For example, these offsite meetings would incur travel and accommodation costs and would also take their toll on the attendees’ work-like balance, explained Roy Ford, SPAR UK’s IT controller.

“We have a lot of senior executives travelling to a central point or host distributors for meetings and these will be, what we believe to be, in excess of 50 meetings a year,” he explained to Cloud Pro.

“Now, this is fine in the good weather, and everyone likes a nice trip out to Dundee or Cornwall, but as the weather hits us in the latter part of the year, this gets disrupted.”

To get round this, Ford said he asked the company board to consider signing off a cloud-based video conferencing technology deployment project on numerous occasions, with little success.

“Every year I put a proposal to the board, and it always gets a good reception when it’s snowing...but when we get round to May and the new financial year starts, they’ve forgotten about how hard it was to arrange those meetings,” Ford explained.

“I did get to a point in 2011 where I just thought, ‘this is never going to happen in our business.’”

The deployment costs had also proven to be a bit of a drawback for the board, as – at one point – Ford had been quoted a price of more than £200,000 for the project.

However, Ford claims he was able to bring down the project costs significantly by teaming up with networking firm Avaya and selecting its cloud-based, real-time collaboration Internet video conferencing tool, Scopia.

This resulted in the projected deployment costs coming down by more than 50 per cent, because the cloud-based element meant the firm no longer needed to invest in a costly infrastructure overhaul.

“The only investment we really had to make was in the screens and the cameras…and when we took that to the board, they thought we had missed something off the figures because it was so much cheaper this time around,” Ford said

The first deployment took place in May 2013, and was completed across all five of the company’s distribution sites within six weeks.

“We had a few teething problems, unrelated to the Avaya technology, where the networks weren’t set up properly,” said Ford.

“Then we gradually started off with one or two [sites] talking to each other in preparation for meetings to now where we’re actually having a number of meetings between all parties on a regular basis.

“We don’t see this as replacing meetings. That was never our intention. What we want to do is make our meetings we have to have more efficient,” Ford added.

All in all, the return on investment for the project is expected to be less than 18 months, and the company is now looking to encourage wider usage of the technology within its business.

“[Some areas of the business] believe in face-to-face meetings as being the only way of doing things, and for that reason we will always have [in-person] meetings,” he said.

“That being said, it is working and…has helped to reduce the time out of the office by half.”

Article Source: SPAR UK hails cloud-based video conferencing cost savings

How video conferences keep agency personnel well-trained

There’s nothing quite as exciting as when learning comes to life for students. That’s why, whether it’s a session on the Cold War for K–12 students or medical training for military doctors, federal agencies are plugged in to multipoint video conferencing for education.

Agencies as diverse as the Air Force, the National Park Service and the National Archives and Records Administration are using cloud-based video conferencing as an educational tool.

Both the NPS and NARA run Internet video conferencing for outreach programs with K–12 schools and colleges; and the Air Force, through its Air Technology Network (ATN) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, uses the technology to train military personnel across the globe. ATN is part of a larger satellite network, the Government Education and Training Network (GETN), which is a cooperative venture with other federal agencies to share bandwidth and more than 1,300 downlink facilities.

James McGettigan, a senior IT specialist based at Valley Forge National Historical Park in Pennsylvania, runs an online video conferencing network that supports NPS distance learning sessions, mostly with K–12 schools. The sessions can originate from nearly any of the 400 national parks across the country, so the subjects range from video tours of Grand Canyon National Park to classes on the immigration wave of the early 20th century at Ellis Island.

“The goal is to reach students across the country and get them interested in their country’s history, culture and natural resources,” McGettigan says. “The idea is to get the students inspired to become the next generation of park service em­ployees and future stewards of these national treasures.”

David Rosenbaum, an education specialist at NARA, also wants to inspire students to learn about American history. Rosenbaum says during his busy time in March he often runs up to 50 video conferencing sessions. Topics range from introductory lessons about NARA to more in-depth classes on the Revolutionary War, the Great Depression and World War II.

“I’m trying to show students that the National Archives is much more than just the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,” says Rosenbaum, who taught high school history in Nebraska for 27 years.

On the technology front, NPS’ McGettigan says he communicates with the schools through a mix of Polycom and Tandberg equipment. Typically, sessions with students are broadcast into a classroom, school library or an auditorium. Most of the sessions feature chroma key technology, McGettigan says, used much the same way that it would be for a weather report on television, where there’s a green or blue screen behind the reporter, but the viewer sees a weather map. The NPS uses the technique to impose a live park ranger onto a video stream or a static image.

Rosenbaum uses Polycom HDX 8000-series gear to connect with the schools, and has two monitors: a 59-inch Samsung plasma screen and a 37-inch LG 37CS560 monitor that he uses in his studio to view the sessions on his end. Rosenbaum also uses an Elmo document camera to display historic documents.

900
The largest number of training locations to receive a single program simultaneously via satellite through the Government Education and Training Network
SOURCE: Air Technology Network Program Management Office

“Typically, I’ll coordinate the setups with the IT people at the schools,” Rosenbaum says. “For now, most of the connections are from our HD video conferencing equipment to theirs, but we’re hoping that we’ll soon have permission to run Skype sessions with the schools.”

Internal Training

The ATN’s online video meeting is used for interagency distance learning purposes, but the majority of the sessions are for internal education and training of military and civil service personnel.

Philip Westfall, director of ATN’s Program Management Office, says his group primarily runs one-way video and two-way audio broadcasts of classes by Air Force instructors on topics as diverse as civil engineering, medical continuing education and Air Force weekend training. ATN also has a partnership with the NPS to support its need for satellite distance learning.

ATN offers more than 500 courses and provides about 215,000 hours of training annually. For most of the classes, they run point-to-point connections of online meeting software equipment from the instructor’s site to the main ATN hub at Wright-Patterson AFB. That gets transmitted through an encoder and sent over a satellite TV network to the Defense Department and other federal sites around the world.

“Keep in mind that many of our sessions are for one-week or two-week classes that run four to five hours a day; it’s not like a 30-minute online class or a webinar,” Westfall says.

Robert Arnold, senior analyst for unified communications and collaboration at Frost & Sullivan, says ATN’s use of best web conferencing is not very different from how large corporations are leveraging the technology.

“The beauty of using best web conferencing software in this way is that organizations can keep their best-trained educators in front of the audience,” says Arnold. He adds that multipoint broadcasting over satellite is very appealing to large organizations, mainly because it’s cost-effective.

In fact, low cost is the reason Westfall sticks with the one-way video: ATN can deliver the classes at $4.16 per hour of instruction. Westfall aims to be “the cheapest date in distance learning.”

“Our function is mission-centric,” he says. “We need to get them trained quickly and back out on the job.”

A Special Seat at Ellis Island

A lot can come from a video meeting software. James McGettigan, a senior IT specialist with the National Park Service, relates one example from 2011, when a park ranger from Ellis Island was giving a distance learning session on the immigration wave of the early 20th century to students from Prattsburgh Central School District in upstate New York.

As the ranger explained how the immigrants were processed, one of the students noticed a lone bench in the background. The student asked if the bench had any special significance, and the ranger replied that the bench was an actual seat used by the immigrants. She told the student that at the height of the immigration wave, the benches were in groups of four.

After a subsequent discussion with the park ranger and the high school’s woodshop teacher, Prattsburgh students decided to spend the next semester building new benches. This spring, a ceremony at Ellis Island — complete with the high school marching band — was held to dedicate the new benches. The event was aired live in Prattsburgh for students and parents who couldn’t make the trip.

“Now, these students have a stewardship established with Ellis Island,” McGettigan says. “Their names are now a part of the history of Ellis Island.”

Keeper of the Flame

Along with the hundreds of classes it broadcasts to schools via video conference annually, the National Park Service has also installed a series of webcams at national parks across the country.

One of the most famous is TorchCam, which lets website visitors get a close-up view of the Statue of Liberty torch.

James McGettigan of the National Park Service says before TorchCam could go up, he had to first review the site to ensure that NPS could technically install webcams on Lady Liberty’s torch. NPS park management then met with the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation to discuss the project. SOLEIF brought in EarthCam, a company that provides webcam services, to transmit the webcam feeds over the web.

A design proposal was then submitted to the New York/New Jersey Historic Preservation Society for final approval. The entire process took six months to complete. TorchCam went live October 28, 2011, on the 125th birthday of the Statue of Liberty; today, five webcams at the site provide panoramic views of New York Harbor as well as of the iconic torch and Lady Liberty’s crown.

Article Source: How video conferences keep agency personnel well-trained

Video conferencing for your business

Multipoint video conferencing is easier than ever. Nearly anyone with a laptop or smartphone can do video calls these days. Why bother with conference calls when you can meet up in person, virtually speaking? Business is all about relationships, and videoconferencing is a much better tool for teamwork and collaboration than voice alone.

Why use video?

So why is cloud-based video conferencing better than phone? It’s a superior communications tool, second only to real-life meetings. Studies have shown that about two thirds of all communication is actually nonverbal. With videoconferencing, you can pick up on visual cues such as facial expression, body language and gestures. With a phone call, all you get is voice. That means you are missing critical elements of every interaction. There simply is no substitute.

Another key benefit is engagement. On conference calls that are voice-only, people may multitask and lose focus. Since you can’t see them, you can’t tell what else they may be doing besides listening. On a video call, you are expected to visibly pay attention to the topic at hand, and the rest of the participants can easily see if you get side-tracked. This is a level of accountability not possible with voice calls.

Ironically, Internet video conferencing can be more efficient than regular meetings as well. Since there is a defined start and end, with people calling in from different locations, there is less likely to be as much chitchat before and after. That keeps meetings very focused.

Obviously, online video conferencing has a variety of additional benefits: it can bring people together across multiple locations, it supports telecommuters by keeping them in touch with teammates, and it reduces travel expenses. It’s green too, since it reduces the need for travel.

Other uses

Best web conferencing software can be used for far more than just team meetings. It’s highly effective for interviews, making it a great screening tool for out-of-town candidates. It’s excellent for training, and sessions can be recorded for reference at a later date. It’s also a terrific tool to use with prospects and customers. Your sales people can have much more personal contact by video as they are working through the sales process, and you can ensure great customer service by conferencing in customers as you work together with them. Even one-on-one meetings between staff members can be enhanced with video instead of just voice.

Tools

If you have a PC with a camera and microphone, you can best web conference software. You simply need a service to facilitate the calls. Some of the most popular services are Citrix GoToMeeting, Adobe Connect, Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, Fuze Meeting Pro and Skype Premium.

Each has its pros and cons, but the core of all these products is PC-based hd video conferencing. Skype is one of the least expensive options if you just want to try out whether this works for you. As long as the main caller has Skype Premium, you can conference in up to ten callers. The other callers can use free accounts.

If you like Skype but want to do more, consider exploring the more robust services listed above. They allow for more callers and provide more collaboration tools — at additional cost, of course. Each company has slightly different needs, so you will want to test which service is right for your organization.

To enhance your video capabilities, upgrade your conference room with a large wall-mounted display that’s connected to a PC. Hook up a quality camera and microphone. Then you can easily host group video conferences.

If you find that staff are using video conferencing software one-on-one, check out video chat options that allow for quick connections. Lync, from Microsoft, offers this; Skype is also an easy and effective tool. A good quality webcam costs less than $100, making it easy and cost-effective to provide high quality video to everyone on your team.

The only other item you will need to consider is Internet bandwidth. If you are running video meeting software on a regular basis, they take a lot more bandwidth than phone calls and email. A T1 will be maxed out in no time. Check out high-speed fiber Internet connections, or at least a fast cable Internet connection. Pricing continues to drop, making the additional bandwidth steadily more affordable. If you go with a cable connection, get the fastest upload speed you can. A fast download means you will be able to receive audio and video from others, but without a good upload your audio and video may come across as choppy.

Mobile options

You can best web conferencing from anywhere, not just your desk or conference room. Anyone with a laptop likely has a camera built in, and for very little extra you can upgrade them to an HD-quality videocam. However, a laptop is not required. Mobile devices like tablets and even smartphones will work for most of the videoconferencing tools listed here. This means your team can meet from nearly any location.

High-end systems

PC-based options are a fraction of the cost, but they can’t replicate the quality and ease of the high-end web conferencing software systems, like Lifesize, Cisco TelePresence, and Polycom. These systems are expensive and consume huge amounts of bandwidth, but they provide the highest quality connections. The goal of these pricey systems is to make it feel like you are sitting right across the table from the other callers. Multiple high-definition cameras with eye-tracking features and directional microphones are programmed to replicate an in-person experience as closely as possible.

Getting started

A free Skype account and a couple webcams are all you need to get started with hd web conferencing. Next time you want to do a conference call, try video instead. Connect to team members working from home, customers in another city, or even staff who are traveling. As you expand your horizons, try screen-sharing or use a virtual whiteboard so that you can collaborate with everyone on the call. Once you get accustomed to videoconferencing, you will find more and more ways to use it. It’s a great way to bring your team and your customers together.

Wendy Gauntt is president of CIO Services LLC, a technology consulting company that specializes in small-business solutions. Visit her website at www.cioservicesllc.com for more information, ideas and free resources.

Article Source: Video conferencing for your business

6 misconceptions getting in the way of video conferencing growth

With air travel becoming an increasingly unpleasant, unpredictable, and costly experience; rising gas prices; and thousands of hours lost to travel time , it doesn’t take a genius to see that multipoint video conferencing should be pervasive across all areas of industry and government — and yet it’s not.

A recent study by Mobile Work Exchange yielded some promising numbers. If half of all federal government workers used cloud-based video conferencing, concluded the report, they would achieve an average productivity increase of 3.5 hours per week, shave about $4.95 billion from annual travel costs, and, in total, save an estimated $8 billion a year.

With such compelling returns, it’s no wonder that Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick is leading the promotion of a new bill designed to reduce federal government travel spending by 50 percent, H.R. 2643, the Stay In Place, Cut the Waste Act of 2013, by implementing the broad use of Internet video conferencing. What’s surprising is that this hasn’t already happened, and not just in government, but in education, healthcare, and retail. 

Recent analyst reports show that the mass adoption of online video conferencing is a phenomenon still waiting to happen.  For example, Infonetics Research described 2012 as a ‘rotten’ year for the traditional videoconferencing industry, and IDC’s report for the first quarter of this year was equally glum. 

Part of the problem is that the market is confused by a plethora of new offerings with widely differing functions and access methods.  A bigger issue is the very deep gap dividing two polarized segments of the industry:  high-end, high-cost, high-maintenance, boardroom-level offerings and person-to-person, low-cost, low-function products. 

The Underserved 20 Million

Stuck in the middle, there’s a miserable gap where an estimated 20 million rooms  —which should be serving small, collaboration teams; cash-strapped SMB organizations; or meetings of six people or fewer  — are waiting for an answer to their pent-up demand.  Chances are any of these groups that are currently using video have fudged together a multipart solution of counterproductive complexity or are huddling three to a chair behind a webcam and computer screen.

Even organizations with videoconferencing facilities already in place only have them in 5 percent of available meeting rooms — primarily because of the high cost of adding to a traditional system or because more affordable systems did not work with what was already there.

For the channel, these 20 million secondary conference rooms represent a $15 billion to $20 billion market opportunity to provide videoconferencing for the rest of us.  There are a growing number of solutions to serve this middle-of-the-pack segment, but momentum is slow to mount. Why? Well, although it’s difficult for the layperson to choose between cloud-based, virtualized, software-centric, browser-based, or hardware-based systems, the biggest problem lies in what people think they know, but actually don’t. 

Below are the six top misconceptions preventing more organizations and more individuals from riding the HD video conferencing wave immediately — and the answers that solutions providers can provide to put them on the right track.

1.  The equipment is too expensive. Wrong!

Even on a small budget, you can hold out for high-quality, business-class equipment that doesn’t require an IT support genius to make it work.  Standards-based, multipoint video conferencing, content sharing, and security is available at less than $1,000 per room via some of the newest, all-in-one systems.

2. It won’t work without an expensive, purpose-built video infrastructure. Wrong!

New product options mean you can use a virtual, cloud-based infrastructure instead of making a heavy investment in servers and other hardware. Some new offerings support desktop video conferencing standards to work both with existing, in-house infrastructures as well as the cloud.

3.  You need dedicated IT support to get every video call started. Wrong!

The latest solutions are designed for nontech specialists and are easy to use. Lightest on IT support and budgets are the latest all-in-one, HDTV-based systems.  Because they don’t need to be connected to a PC with separate speakers, microphone, and camera, even your Granny can use them. (And, actually, she possibly does: long term care residences are beginning to adopt video calling for virtual family visits.)

4.  New room systems must be the same brand as existing boardroom video systems. Wrong!

Newer, standard-based video conferencing software solutions work with most of the traditional videoconferencing vendors’ equipment and connect multiple different systems, fixed and mobile devices to sync up with whatever is already installed in the main conference room.

5.  You can’t mix cloud-based and on-premise. Wrong!

Cloud-based and on-premise options are now available on the same appliance-based solutions. These options can be used in the same organization using either the existing system or a cloud-based virtual infrastructure for hybrid architecture flexibility.  The flexibility allows for many creative deployment scenarios without cutting users out of the main video network.

6.  It makes sense to wait for WebRTC to become commercially available. Wrong!

WebRTC is exciting, but it is still some time away from being a useful standard. For immediate best video conferencing software needs, buy a system from a vendor that’s committed to a universal standard with WebRTC, SIP (session initiation protocol), and emerging standards in their roadmap.

If we can help more potential best video conference software users understand the truth concealed behind these misconceptions, the new class of affordable, room-based videoconference systems become an exciting and immediate way for solutions providers to seize on a massive market opportunity.

Article Source: 6 misconceptions getting in the way of video conferencing growth

Cisco, Polycom Top Vendors in Ailing Video Conferencing Equipment Space

Video collaboration is still popular, but users are migrating to software-based solutions and lower-cost systems, according to IDC analysts.

The continued shift of multipoint video conferencing to software and smaller and lower-cost systems is continuing to take its toll on a video communications equipment market that is in decline, according to IDC analysts.

The analysts found that in the second quarter, worldwide revenues for cloud-based video conferencing equipment fell 10.7 percent over the same period in 2012, coming in at more than $532 million. That number is 34.3 percent below the record set in the fourth quarter of 2011, IDC said in a report released Aug. 28.

Internet video conferencing itself it still growing in popularity, according to Petr Jirovsky, senior research analyst, Worldwide Networking Trackers Research at IDC. What's happening is that how business people are using the technology is changing.

"Despite the overall weak 2Q13 results in the worldwide enterprise online video conferencing equipment market, we are still seeing interest in videoconferencing being driven by integrations with vendors' unified communications and collaboration portfolios, and the proliferation of video among desktop and mobile users," Jirovsky said in a statement. "Video as a key component of collaboration continues to place high on the list of priorities for many organizations."

The trend is forcing established video conferencing software vendors like Cisco Systems and Polycom—which initially built their video collaboration businesses on the back of hardware systems—to pivot quickly to software and cloud-based offerings. At the same time, it's given rise to a growing number of smaller companies, such as Vidyo and Blue Jeans Networks, that offer software-only video conferencing solutions that are made for a more highly mobile workforce that wants to be able to collaborate on whatever device they are using.

Unified communications (UC) vendors also are expanding their offerings to include video, either through in-house development or through acquisitions or partnerships, such as Avaya's purchase last year of Radvision or the alliance announced in June between Mitel and Vidyo.

Global revenues for the multi-codec, immersive telepresence systems continued to decline, falling 32 percent from the second quarter last year, according to IDC. Video infrastructure equipment, including hardware-based multipoint control units (MCUs), dropped 20.4 percent, while room-based video systems saw revenues decrease 5 percent.

Revenues for desktop video systems increased 7.7 percent.

"The macroeconomic situation, including the recession in Europe and sequestration (i.e. budget cuts) in the U.S., produced a cautionary IT spending environment that carried over into the first half of 2013 with the spending outlook for the second half of the year not much more promising," Rich Costello, senior analyst for enterprise communications infrastructure at IDC, said in a statement. "In addition, and most significantly, we are definitely starting to see the impact of lower-cost video systems and more software-based products and offerings on the enterprise video equipment market."

However, demand for online video collaboration technologies is continuing to grow. In a report released earlier this month, Cisco officials found that young executives—34 or younger—who came into the marketplace less than a decade ago see video communications technology as a key part of business.

According to Cisco's Global Young Executives' Video Attitude Survey, three out of five young executives will rely on business-class video over the next five to 10 years, and 87 percent believe video positively impacts companies, from saving money on travel costs to improving the experience of telecommuters to attracting high-level talent. In addition, 87 percent say they'd choose to work for an organization that invests in high-quality video collaboration technology over one that hasn't.

"Today's leaders are often tech enthusiasts," Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Collaboration Technology Group, said in a statement when the report was released. "Tomorrow's leaders are increasingly tech-dependent, and video is no exception to the rule. The next generation of leaders is realizing that using video makes them more productive, helps companies reduce costs and even plays a role in attracting the best talent available. They understand why video can be better than being there."

Cisco continues to lead the best video conferencing software equipment market, with 41 percent share, despite a 7.5 percent decline in revenues over the past year. Polycom's revenue fell 14.8 percent over the same period in 2012, and the company has a 29.2 percent share of the market. Huawei Technologies holds 7.6 percent of the market, according to IDC.

Article Source: Cisco, Polycom Top Vendors in Ailing Video Conferencing Equipment Space

AVer Delivers Sub-$1,000 Videoconferencing Solution

A new product from AVer Information Inc. Americas has made sub-$1,000 multipoint video conferencing a reality for SMBs, as well as for enterprises looking for affordable huddle-room solutions.

That’s the word from Kris Rangarajan, marketing director, and Eric Yu, product management director, at AVer Information.

The company got its start selling document cameras, and is now a market leader in that space. Such products are commonly used in the classroom.

Four years ago, AVer came out with its first cloud-based video conferencing endpoint. Then, in 2011, it unveiled the HVC310, a four-way MCU selling for $4,500.

But AVer Information decided that for its Internet video conferencing solutions to really be successful in the mid-market space it needed to get to a sub-$1,000 price point, said Rangarajan. At the same time, the company wanted to make the solution very easy to configure, even when working with other vendors’ solutions, and simple to use. The result was the EVC100, which AVer announced last month.

This solution provides all components, with the exception of the display device and Internet connectivity, in one box; the gear can be set up in 5 to 10 minutes. It comes with a strong warranty and service package, and AVer is partnering with cloud providers including Blue Jeans Network, Vidtel, and Zoom to ensure interoperability with the cloud.

“We are positioning [the EVC100] as the endpoint for the cloud, because interoperability has to play in to the cost-piece for this to be successful,” says Rangarajan.

She adds that interoperability is particularly important for enterprises that want to use its solutions in so-called “huddle rooms,” smaller rooms for use by five to 10 people.

To enable businesses to test out the EVC100, AVer offers a test drive kit, which includes a fully configured system.

“Eighty-five to 90 percent of people who touch our product keep our product,” says Rangarajan.

The EVC100 is a 720p solution. The EVC130 is a 1080p solution with recording capabilities. 

Article Source: AVer Delivers Sub-$1,000 Videoconferencing Solution

eVideo launches eMeetMe

Sydney, Australia, Date:  7 August 2013 eVideo Communications, Australia’s leading desktop video conferencing and telepresence communications company, has responded to the increasing demand for cloud based videoconferencing by officially launching eMeetMe.

eMeetMe is a hosted cloud service incorporating eVideo’s own hosted solution which allows multisite multipoint video conferencing for desktop, tablet, phone and room systems using a virtualised environment.

With the eMeetMe cloud based video conferencing our customers have the benefits of a pay as you grow, with cost effective monthly expenditure rather than a big commitment upfront.

With our 24/7 support, no capital outlay, monthly and annual plans the benefits to eVideo customers with this browser based communication method allows anywhere, anytime video and web conferencing.

Tom Morgan CEO and Managing Director of eVideo says “eMeetMe cloud based platforms and services will enable users to effectively collaborate and allow eVideo to provide higher levels of service as a main provider for hd video conferencing solutions”.

Article Source: eVideo launches eMeetMe

Infrastructure a hurdle for video conferencing legislation

Legislation introduced in the House of Representatives in July aims to reduce travel expenses for federal employees by up to half by 2017, but complying with such a robust cost-cutting measure could pose challenges to many federal agencies.

H.R. 2643, introduced by Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), would make hd video conferencing an integral part of a plan developed by the director of the Office of Management and Budget to cut $7.5 billion off the $15 billion the government spends on travel each year.

Yet challenges in IT infrastructure, tight agency budgets and policy are potential barriers to entry for many agencies.

"To get that kind of reduction, you're going to have to have a significant infrastructure upgrade – you're increasing traffic across the network when your employees are desktop video conferencing," said Jason Parry, Collaboration Practice Director at Force 3, a federal IT solutions provider.

Agencies with highly developed IT infrastructures might not sweat the extra bandwidth required by employees engaging in more Internet video conferencing, but smaller agencies that haven't built out existing infrastructures yet might not be able to pony up the cash to modernize.

In addition, proprietary multipoint video conferencing software can be an expensive acquisition for agencies that haven't dabbled in it before. But some new technologies could help alleviate the financial burden for agencies with tight budgets.

"Online video conferencing is increasingly cloud-based or IP-enabled, so access can be available via an agency's established enterprise network," said Cindy Auten, general manager for Mobile Work Exchange.

"Agencies do not necessarily need to invest in new systems for cloud-based video conferencing solutions, which can range from off-the-shelf services to dedicated meeting facilities that make it appear as if remote participants are actually in the room – and price points will vary," Auten added.

Fitzpatrick's bill incorporates aspects of several other executive and legislative policies, including the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010, Executive Order 13589 and OMB's 12-12-12 memorandum, which already called for agencies to reduce travel expenditures by 30 percent compared to 2010 levels.

Yet those policies have been interpreted and treated differently by various agencies, with NASA, for example, disallowing travel for employees when remote participation by phone or business video conferencing was possible. That move saved the agency $21 million in fiscal 2012, but overall savings realized from decreased travel and increased videoconferencing are likely to vary significantly from agency to agency.

Executive-branch government video conferencing policy would be set by OMB, but after the general guidelines are in place, agencies could tailor them to fit their mission.

"On the policy side of it, if [the bill] passes and it's in place, the question will be how agencies use healthcare video conferencing, what they should use it for, and when you should do it as opposed to traveling and other means of communication," Parry said. "Enforcing that legislation if any of those policies are shaky, it really doesn't work."

Parry said cutting feds' travel costs in half by 2017 is a lofty goal -- one that might best be met by a "gradual approach" rather than a sudden shift. Any plan would have to be transparent so that savings are tracked, documented and potentially reallocated elsewhere, Parry added.

"I think that the best plan would look at a gradual reduction," Parry said. "It is not going to be like flipping a switch. For what they intend to reduce over the next few years, we would need a plan where a portion of the money being saved would be allocated back to a capital budget to be able to provide the infrastructure that is required to reach that 50 percent mark."

Article Source: Infrastructure a hurdle for video conferencing legislation

U.S. Government Seeks to Save $15 Billion With Video Conferencing

Web based video conferencing has many benefits, not the least of which is economical. As travel costs rise and travel budgets tighten, many in business have moved toward online, real-time communication tools. According to The Business of Federal Technology, it appears that the U.S. government may be following suit. This July, the U.S. House of Representatives introduced legislation that would potentially cut $15 billion in travel expenses incurred annually by federal agencies through the increased use of video conferencing.

The bill, titled "Cut the Waste, Stay in Place Act of 2013," and introduced by Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick, (R-Pa.), would call on the director of the Office of Management and Budget to develop a plan to reduce the federal government’s travel expenditures by as much as 50 percent by 2017. 

Specifically, the bill calls on the use of desktop video conferencing to achieve a significant budget cut. Writers of the bill claim the following three benefits to adopting this new measure:

1. Cloud-based video conferencing has been under-utilized thus far, and therefore its full potential has not been completely realized.
2. The move from hardware-based software to browser-based software makes video conferencing technology less expensive and more accessible to more parties.
3. Online video conferencing enhances communication, improves problem-solving, reduces carbon footprints, facilitates better collaboration, and shortens project time periods, among many other benefits.

This new bill builds on previous orders issued via the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010, which already calls for agencies to reduce travel expenditures by 30 percent compared to 2010 levels. Under the umbrella of previous initiatives, many agencies have already made motions toward collaborative technology.

NASA is one such agency. It saved $21 million in fiscal 2012 by replacing travel with hd video conferencing when it was possible. The Naval Safety & Environmental Training Center has successfully used video conferencing for better training programs--providing video-based education to over 10,000 government civilians and Navy personnel all over the world. The Center also adapted its mission-critical U.S. Navy Safety Professional Development, replacing its San Diego conference with a video broadcast. This adaptation reduced a potential $1.5 million travel tab to less than $100,000.

The budget saving advantages of multipoint video conferencing are undeniable, and the U.S. government agrees. Real-time communication benefits are realized while maintaining a responsible hold on expenditures.

Article Source: U.S. Government Seeks to Save $15 Billion With Video Conferencing

Pilot video conferences help families connect with prisoners from a distance

The Beltsville Adventist Community Center is using video technology to help families keep in touch with their imprisoned relatives.

The center, which is less than a year old, installed web based video conferencing software and equipment that family and friends can use to speak with inmates who are eligible to receive visitors at Jessup Correctional Institution.

“We’re very excited to be piloting this,” said Glenn Holland, community pastor for the center, which is operated through the Beltsville Seventh-day Adventist Church.

“We think this is better for safety, and it is easier on families in that they do not have to travel as far,” said Martha Danner of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

Inmates are more likely to be successful after prison if they have strong family support, but many cannot make the journey for visits on a regular basis, Danner said.

“If somebody can visit from a remote location and maintain closer contact with the inmate, that inmate may well do better when he or she gets out,” said Danner, the department’s deputy director of community supervision support.

Holland said he learned about desktop video conferencing visits being used in Virginia through the regional conference of Seventh-day Adventist churches. Holland said Virginia is the only other state to provide the service. “It seemed like something we ought to be doing in Maryland,” he said. He contacted the department of correctional services in September to develop the program.

Jessup is the only Maryland prison participating, but if the pilot is successful, the program will be expanded to other state prisons, Danner said. Several Baltimore area churches have expressed an interest in the idea.

There are 22 prisons in Maryland; Jessup is the closest to Prince George’s County.

Capt. Anthony Lewis, pilot project coordinator at Jessup, said the benefits include not having to search visitors for contraband or worry about visitor safety inside the facility.

“Jessup Correctional Institution was pleased to be chosen . . .to pilot this video visit program,” Lewis said. “This is a wonderful program, and I would like to see it expand.”

The first video visit was held July 14.

“It went great,” Holland said. “They were really excited to be the first ones to try it.” The inmate and visitor did not want to be identified, he said.

Video visits must be scheduled at least a week in advance by calling the Beltsville Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Visits are scheduled only for Sundays because the church observes the Sabbath on Saturdays and hosts a day-care program weekdays. But if demand increases, the program might be extended to weeknights, Holland said.

The community center also provides other services, such as counseling, a computer lab and a food pantry.

Holland said the video visit is one way churches and government can cooperate.

“Both churches and government need to be working together to meet the needs of the community that we both have a mutual interest in serving,” Holland said.

Article Source: Pilot video conferences help families connect with prisoners from a distance