Award Winning Product Also Achieves Prestigious Security Certification

NEW YORK, NY and OSLO, NORWAY–(Marketwire - March 12, 2008) - TANDBERG® (OSLO: TAA), a leading global provider of telepresence, high-definition videoconferencing and mobile video solutions, today announced that its TANDBERG Video Communication Server (VCS) has received Internet Telephony’s Product of the Year Award. The VCS, a bridge between H.323-enabled and SIP-enabled networks, was selected for demonstrating the vision, leadership and attention to detail that are the hallmarks of the award.

“The Product of the Year Awards exemplify the best this industry has to offer,” stated Greg Galitzine, editorial director of TMC, the publisher of Internet Telephony. “With nearly 500 applications this year, the judging process was difficult but the selected winners have demonstrated a commitment to quality and the continued development of the IP telephony industry.”

The award-winning VCS was also honored with a certification by ICSA Labs, an independent division of Verizon Business and a vendor neutral testing and certification body for hundreds of the world’s top security vendors. ICSA Labs assessed the ability of the VCS to maintain existing security and integrity levels on a network while not negatively affecting existing security controls or introducing security vulnerabilities.

The VCS is at the core of TANDBERG’s leading SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) solution. SIP will bring familiar tools such as call forwarding, transferring and holding to video communications, and will provide support for new features such as mobility and presence. For example, the FindMe™ feature of the TANDBERG VCS allows users to have their calls forwarded to multiple devices and choose where the call goes if there is no answer.

“While H.323 has been widely implemented by voice and videoconferencing equipment manufacturers in the past, SIP forms the building block of unified communications solutions,” said Andrew Davis, Senior Analyst for Wainhouse Research. “TANDBERG’s VCS enables videoconferencing equipment to plug into enterprise-wide communications and collaboration systems.”

“We are excited to receive the Product of the Year award from Internet Telephony,” said Peter Nutley, director of global product marketing at TANDBERG. “With this award and ICSA certification, the TANDBERG Video Communication Server is further securing TANDBERG’s position as the industry leading video provider for unified communications.”

Click here to learn more about TANDBERG Video Communication Server.

Mas Selamat Kastari reputedly to be the leader of Jemaah Islamiyah leader in Singapore has escaped since 27th February 2008. It has been exactly a week since he escaped and Singapore’s police force still have no idea where he is.

You may wonder what has videoconferencing got to with a dangerous escapee?

Well, first of all, videoconferencing solution can help to mitigate or even prevent such cases from happening in the first place.

Mas Selamat escaped because he was brought to see his family physically face-t0-face. He then asked to use the toilet and somehow make his escape from the detention center.

If videoconferencing has been used instead of direct interaction for those criminals classified as highly-dangerous, this security lapse would not have happen at all.

I have written a post on how Singapore Prison’s department have already deployed videoconferencing solution for such purpose already. They should consider extending the videoconferencing functionality to all other criminals holding facility like the above detention center.

Eureka!

It seems like videoconferencing found itself another in another unusual videoconferencing usage again!

Cheers

mr. videoconference

On March 03 2008, Siemens announced (PR Newswire article) their foray into the world of videoconferencing. I was surprised by their announcement as Siemens has never been a strong contender in areas of telecommunications (my own perception) especially in areas of videoconferencing.

Upon delving deeper and reading a Wainhouse report, it appear more clear to me why Siemens is moving into this lucrative industry. They are NOT starting from scratch by spending millions of dollars in R&D and nor even building a new plant. What they have done is to OEM the videoconference equipment from LifeSize.

LifeSize is a young company that focuses on HD videoconferencing and I’ve got to admit they have some good and aesthetically well-designed products. But I would say they are still miles behind in market share compared to incumbents like Polycom and Tandberg.

LifeSize gets to benefit from this partnership as well. One obvious benefit is their revenue will grow and with Siemens as the stronger partner, they can go into more markets and give the incumbents a good fight. They could even have joint R&D initiative to come up with better products.With Siemens huge financial backing LifeSize could soon be a force to reckon with. LifeSize could eventually be bought over by Siemens eventually once Siemens see the potential in this industry!

Mr. Videoconference Take on Siemens’ Strategy

1) They would be leveraging on their unified communications platform OpenScape. So they can offer their client a one-stop solution for all their UC needs including HD videoconferencing. Their power proposition is to be a SINGLE VENDOR that provides integrated audio-video-web unified communications solution.

2) My take is Siemens will be pushing the videoconferencing component as part of their UC offering to big organizations. Their core strategy may NOT include selling Siemens brand of videoconferencing solution known as OpenScape Video direct to customers who require videoconferencing ONLY.

Doing so will mean they are entering directly into the same and crowded market space as incumbents like Polycom and Tandberg. Also it would mean they will be fighting with LifeSize for the same customers as well. Competing on direct grounds may be costly for Siemens compared to the “indirect” method. They will need to equip salespeople with AV knowledge and may possibly setup new department just for that. All this will means heavy investment upfront without knowing how well their OpenScape Video will fare.

Thus I strongly believe Siemen’s strategy is to sell OpenScape Video as an added component of their OpenScape UC solution only.

3) Existing partners of Siemen’s UC solutions will be actively courted to help promote OpenScape Video. Partners can finally sell an all-in-one solution and at the same time bump up their customer purchase value with the video component.

4) Siemens will be testing and monitoring the sales for OpenScape Video and if it proves lucrative for them, I believe they will offer to buy over LifeSize. With their financial might, strong branding and extensive distribution network, Siemens videoconferencing will be a serious competitor.

Thus I can’t wait to see Siemens next move and that might really shake up the industry on the whole. This industry is definitely getting crowded (even Singapore’s Creative Technology is jumping into the bandwagon as well! This will be another interesting post. ). No doubt I will be affected as well and I’m definitely excited by the idea of more competition. This would means my company have to think of new strategies and personally I would need to sell better in order to beat these upcoming competitors!

Cheers

mr. videoconference

Reuters reported that Hewlett Packard (HP) has said their installations for Halo telepresnece rooms have more than doubled annually since 2005.

HP has sold and installed 140 Halo rooms in 22 countries since it was launched on December 2005. 

Each room costs USD$249,000.00 and it has monthly running charges that probably runs into thousands of dollars.

So the revenue from HP Halo systems is approximately USD$35 million spread over 140 Halo rooms.

I personally think that telepresence solutions are only suitable for huge organizations with deep pockets. Those normal endpoints videoconferencing appliances will be more than sufficient for most people. Systems like HP Halo costs more ¼ million to invest in and on top of that, the recurring bandwidth charges are not cheap to start with!

I still believe no amount of highest quality videoconferencing can replace physical face-to-face meeting. I have to admit that videoconferencing CANNOT totally replace face-to-face meetings. Sometimes human touch is still the best! 

But for non-critical meetings like non-sales calls and inter-department meetings, videoconferencing can be used instead.

So is Telepresence here to stay? Well, it a technology that has evolved rather than being a revolution. It is here to stay definitely but it will not take off in a big way such that every organization will want to invest in it. The manufacturers will certainly aim to keep their current price level to make it only available to those who can afford it and not to compete with the traditional endpoints as well. 

Cheers.

mr. videoconference

On 21 Feb 2008, Avistar came out with a press release on their collaboration with EVS (Emergency Vehicle Solutions Inc) to equip emergency vehicles with Mobile Videoconferencing.

The initiative aims to equip frontline emergency staff like law enforcement and medical personnel with multi-party video and audio communications.

I find it interesting why there is an emphasis on multi-party videoconferencing. After reading their press release, it became clear that the whole purpose is to offer ease of co-ordination between various emergency services department.

It is true that during emergency situations, precious time could be wasted if the on-site personnel have to repeat his observations and assessments to various departments. Multi-party videoconferencing provides an avenue for the on-site emergency personnel to conduct simultaneous and live reporting with the various command centers.

Experts situated back at the various command centers can offer advice and even collectively make decisions and diagnosis in a much shorter time. Any precious minute saved during emergency would greatly enhance the survival rate of an injured victim.

I like this idea!

I think it’s a good application of videoconferencing technology besides the usual boardrooms videoconferencing usage.

This mobile videoconferencing solution is based on Avistar’s C3 platform using off the shelf hardware, high quality webcams and utilizing wireless network connectivity.

I personally feel that Avistar is going to verticals where the big boys like Polycom or Tandberg have ignored. The current market may not be big but if they can replicate their success to different states or even other country’s emergency services, it could then be a lucrative new vertical for them!
What do you think?

Cheers.

mr. videoconference

Just played around with Permalinks after I realised they are important for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I wish I had known about it and had implemented it earlier!

My blog is already indexed in Google with the old Permalink structure which was basically Page ID as the URL!

Damn! Oh well, I had only myself to blame as I did not read up enough beforehand. I jumped straight into setting up this blog as I am just too excited to share my views about the videoconferencing industry.

Recently Creative’s inPerson Personal Videoconferencing System has been gaining a lot of attention in this industry and I’ve decided I shall write something on it. I think Creative Technology is shifting focus from consumer electronics to B2B market and this could be their “blue ocean” to lift them out of their doldrums.

Watch out for that post on Creative inPerson!

Cheers.

mr. videoconference

Videoconferencing gained support from electronics industry giant Philips!

In their latest Sustainability Report, it was mentioned that videoconferencing is being promoted as an alternative instead of business trips.

The following paragraph is extracted from the report and produced here for your easy reading.

“For many years, of course, our employees around the world have been making their travel arrangements online. We use both paperless tickets and credit card statements. In 2007 we added a new functionality when employees book their travel - a pop-up window that suggests video-conferencing as an alternative to raise awareness and encourage people to consider this option.”

Seems like videoconferencing is really gaining traction and organizations do realized that they have to do their part to make the world a better place to live in. One way is to reduce CO2 emission and at the same time they can save costs with videoconferencing usage!

Hurray videoconferencing!

Cheers

mr. videoconference