Doing A Lot More By Travelling A Lot Less

Lifesize Communications came together with DataQuest and PCQuest to educate a select gathering of CIOs and CTOs on myths surrounding high-def video conferencing and the benefits it offers

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

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Do you think high definition video conferencing is not for you? There are several examples of how high definition video conferencing is changing the way people communicate and do business. Large global banks need to do daily trans-continental calls to their partners and customers. They use high definition video conferencing to have on the fly conversations with each other, where they can take prudent decisions faster and save on traveling costs.

Why hi-def videoconferencing?
Video conferencing as a concept has been around for several years now. But it suffered from issues like poor quality of image, unclear sound quality, too many session breakages due to the fluctuating transfer of data and high bandwidth requirement, not to mention the high cost of the equipment. Its hi-def version tries to eliminate all these negatives. There are several reasons why enterprise customers globally are now willing to opt for hi-def video conferencing and the key one is the closing gap between the prices of the low- and hi-def versions. “Soon, the prices of hi-def video conferencing will overlap that of low-def video conferencing and customers will no longer need the latter,” informed Craig Malloy, CEO, LifeSize Communications.

Another important reason why enterprises will readily invest in hi-def video conferencing increasingly is because it eliminates the need for its executives to travel. This in turn will result in huge savings in cost as well as manhours, besides ensuring that the turnaround time for decision taking is very short.
Malloy gave an example of how LifeSize itself uses hi-def video conferencing internally. Though it is headquartered in Texas, the company uses this technology to communicate with its design centers in Bangkok and Bangalore. “Often there is a need to evaluate what's happening on the circuit board, approve the paint used on our products and check its aesthetics. Sending someone over can be an expensive affair. Therefore we use hi-def video conferencing instead to communicate with the factory supervisors as design heads,” he explained.

Anil Chopra, Editor, PCQuest discussing the applications of high-def Video Conferencing with Craig Malloy, Global MD of LifeSize Communications. Plus a live demo of a high-def video conferencing in action was also shown (right).

Given that most manufacturing companies have outsourced the production of some of their product components to third party agencies all over the world, one can see how video conferencing can come in handy in taking spontaneous decisions, without incurring the expenses of travel. Additionally, it propels global team collaboration as different offices of an organization can communicate with each other in real time taking quicker decisions, improving productivity.

This also explains why there is an increasing number of takers for this technology which is evident from that fact the global videoconferencing business is expected to touch $2 billion this year and the market has been growing at a CAGR of 20 percent over the past five years. This growth will be enabled due to significant price performance advancements in the technology.

The Indian perspective
The Indian videoconferencing market in 2008 was pegged at $35 million per year and has registered a 28 percent growth over 2007, according to figures shared by LifeSize Communications. Several myths abound about the technology in the country, which is why the vendor decided to have select end-customer meetings to dispel them.

The conference was well attended by CIOs of some of Mumbai's large neterprises

One of the perceptions that enterprise customers have about this technology is that it is difficult to deploy and it needs a technician. Malloy proved that wrong with a live demonstration of a real time conferencing with his colleague Dave in Austin with the use of one of their latest product, LifeSize Express, which is easy to set up.

This also answered the query that a few of the present audience had raised about the clarity of the images transmitted as all images transferred at 60 frames per second were transmitted live with a lag of just 15 milliseconds. Touching about the cost of deploying and operating the equipment, Malloy pointed out that prices for the equipment were coming down and the inbuilt features made external intervention unnecessary. Amongst the audience was an official from Reliance Industries, which has already deployed LifeSize's hi-def video conferencing equipment. He raised the question about when will the company introduce wireless versions of its equipment which will make the devices more compact and portable. Malloy assured him that his organization was working on such products, which will be launched in the market shortly.

Some of the other gathered CIOs and CTOs agreed that this development would be of great interest to them as customers. Their enthusiastic response is evidence of the fact that they were keen to experiment with video conferencing, which in turn signals a good business avenue for channel partners.

In fact, the underlying message that came across was that video conferencing was not merely a boardroom solution, but is more of an IT solution, where partners play a critical role.

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