The report surveys 10 companies “to Watch” and compares 16 cloud solutions in a matrix to clarify strengths and weaknesses.

A complete description of the report [...]]]>

Want to know more about SMB video conferencing? Robert Poe has just released a 31 or 32 page report “SMB Video Conferencing: Getting Beyond Clouds & Interoperability.”

The report surveys 10 companies “to Watch” and compares 16 cloud solutions in a matrix to clarify strengths and weaknesses.

A complete description of the report can be found here.  You can get your hands on a copy for $299.

My brag was witnessing the last launch of the space shuttle program, STS-135 Atlantis last week. (Yes, like any good gawking media person, I took pictures and video. You can see [...]]]>

Polycom sage Jeff Rodman (@jefferyrodman) and I swapped around tweets last week about things you just can’t DO via telepresence these days. 

My brag was witnessing the last launch of the space shuttle program, STS-135 Atlantis last week. (Yes, like any good gawking media person, I took pictures and video. You can see the YouTube clip here. There’s also a bunch of articles over at http://satellite.tmcnet.com)

Jeff added “first kiss” and “winning pitch” to the list.  I’d throw in “rock concert” for the simple examples. 

VideoMost is powered by SPIRIT’s TeamSpirit (squelch the Nirvana flashback, please) video server software, providing scalability of up to 1,000 concurrent video channels on a single standard $4000 PC server, says [...]]]>

IT EXPO, Los Angeles – SPIRIT DSP (www.spiritdsp.com) has announced VideoMost.com, a spin-off company providing HD quality, “Massively multi=point) web videoconferencing product. 

VideoMost is powered by SPIRIT’s TeamSpirit (squelch the Nirvana flashback, please) video server software, providing scalability of up to 1,000 concurrent video channels on a single standard $4000 PC server, says the company.

Service providers buying the software can provide HD quality multi-party video conferencing, document sharing, IM, and collaboration.

Currently, VideoMost supports Windows and Mac OSX clients and will soon be available on Apple iOS4 and Android smartphones. The VideoMost server software runs both on Windows and Linux.

LifeSize has been targeting its high-end HD video telepresence and videoconferencing solutions squarely into the enterprise space, undercutting the likes of [...]]]>

Logitech, best known for its PC add-ons such as keyboards, mice, and *ding*ding* video cameras, has gone upscale, purchasing videoconferencing hardware firm LifeSize for $405 million.  Does it make sense? Time will tell.

LifeSize has been targeting its high-end HD video telepresence and videoconferencing solutions squarely into the enterprise space, undercutting the likes of Cisco, Polycom and TANDBERG.  In addition, it has a range of personal office/teleworker and SMB solutions for HD 720p video to complement its higher-end gear.

With the onset of the recession, Austin-based LifeSize has faced stiffer competition in the telepresence arena in the likes of HP, Siemens, and IBM.   The combination of Logitech (deeper pockets, bigger marketing) and LifeSize will be interesting to watch.

Last year, Logitech bought SightSpeed,  a multi-party videoconferencing/video chat services company with some long-distance VoIP services thrown in, so the company’s expansion into the higher-end video solutions and the enterprise space shouldn’t be a total surprise.   Be interesting to see if there are synergies to leverage between the SIP-based SightSpeed division and LifeSize in terms of offering a one-stop shop of services and high-end hardware.

Regardless of the success/failure of the purchase, the further consolidation of the high-end videoconferencing world is likely to stimulate further twittering on the future of Polycom… something I’m going to have to ponder over at HD Voice News later today.

Don’t get me wrong; TANDBERG and Polycom and all the other visual-solutions have their place in the scheme of things, but they are A) expensive B) [...]]]>

Videoconferencing and telepresence rigs provide more information for communications options, but HD voice may prove to be the quickest and most cost-effective upgrade for businesses of all sizes.

Don’t get me wrong; TANDBERG and Polycom and all the other visual-solutions have their place in the scheme of things, but they are A) expensive B) need more bandwidth and C) Need more care, feeding, and prep, due to A & B.

Real world example:  When I was hanging out with Jeff Pulver yesterday, one of his meetings was at the Embassy of Ireland. We were ushered into an elegant and beautiful conference room with a nice TANDBERG video conferencing rig in one corner, video camera adjusted at table height.

As Jeff started his dervish windup on the goodness of HD over vanilla voice, I looked over at the TANDBERG and started calculating how many tens of thousands of dollars it cost to buy it — then multiplied by 2,  for the end point sitting back on the Emerald Isle.   Let’s say, it’s around $30,000 for the single end point.

Compare that $30,000 to a $300 or so HD business phone and you’ve got two orders of magnitude of expense for the baseline videoconferencing setup.  Put another way with the simplified math – you can stick 100 HD phones on desktops and/or conference rooms for the price of one video end point.

Those HD phones will get a lot more day-to-day use than the videoconferencing rig as well.  People will just “pick up the phone” and if they don’t get who they need, they can leave a message, while the videoconferencing rig needs to have an arranged time of use so someone is on the other end — it’s not a spontaneous “Gotta call bob” type of thing.  In addition, people will tend to primp themselves and the video area to look good on camera and running around to prep for that conference.

HD voice is likely to have a lower peak impact upon bandwidth and the network, but more sustained.  Assuming a ratio of use of 1 phone per 10 deployed in E-whats-his-name’s equation, you’d have 10 phones x 64 kbps, so 640 Kbps of bandwidth distributed across the network using G.722.  Compare that to a single point “surge” of 2-3 Mbps for a typical videoconferencing rig.   You could spin out various scenarios to skew numbers either way, but you get my point.

Installation also is a lot easier than a videoconferencing end point; enter the videoconferencing system integrator to adjust for lighting, positioning, and plenty of other factors.

HD voice: Plug in phone to network. Phone number or SIP URI to dial another HD phone (OK, that’s simplified, but you get my point…)

With HD voice now a “baked in” option with Avaya and Polycom phones, upgrading to HD voice is almost a no-brainer for improving corporate productivity, unless you installed non-G.722/non-upgradable VoIP phones last year.

On the first call, I logged into the weekly VoIP User’s conference session using ZipDX and G.722.  Featured speaker was Anthony Stankus, Gigaset Communications product manager for North America — needless to say, he was drinking his own champaigne by using [...]]]>

I had two separate calls today, each with its own unique high-touch component.

On the first call, I logged into the weekly VoIP User’s conference session using ZipDX and G.722.  Featured speaker was Anthony Stankus, Gigaset Communications product manager for North America — needless to say, he was drinking his own champaigne by using a Gigaset phone.   There were somewhere between 20 to 30 people on the call listening and asking questions — and you could tell who was using G.722 and who was using G.711 (John Todd).

Maybe the contrast between the two codecs on a conference call is what people need to get that “Ah ha” moment and realize life is indeed better with HD voice and wideband codecs.

Anthony has an uphill battle getting Gigaset phones proliferated through the big box stores and the SOHO community, but he’s got a great product at an attractive price relative to the rest of the market.

My second call of the day was with author Austin Bay — well, he describes himself as “Author and syndicated columnist. Soldier, developmental aid advocate, war game designer, lecturer, and radio commentator.” The two of us have never met face-to-face, but we’ve been long-time sparring partners on a mailing list or two.

To borrow a phrase from In Living Color, “Him got 27 jobs, Mon!”

Austin and I did an experimental/experiential video call with ooVoo video software.  Bay has used the software to have interactive video chats with his buds at Pajamas TV, with the net results reprocessed into news clips.  Austin wants to get some of the video artifacts out of his rig and I wanted to see it in action.

Austin was using a MacBook and I was on my Acer Aspire One using its embedded webcam and mic. We seemed to get about the same results, but I was “bad” and didn’t use a headset as recommended by ooVoo; didn’t seem to bother Austin any.   I had some white-wash in the background, but I’ve got a skylight behind me, so there’s a lot of natural sunlight that I’d have to adjust for if I was trying do this on a regular basis for publication.

From a working perspective, the only annoyance was Austin and I sometimes talking over each other due to a slight network time lag. He would start and I would start up at the same time with our yadda-yadda.

Without going into details, Austin is getting back into the saddle after a couple of surgeries.  I’m kinda frightened to think what he’s like at 100 percent and medication free, because he was full of enthusiasm and pep from his den in Austin, Texas.