Consumers love video chat… as long as it doesn't cost them anything

Business adoption of videoconferencing is forecast to dramatically increase in coming years as everything from home-based businesses to enterprises look to reduce costs by containing travel expenses. But general consumer interest in the technology, including more simple video chat technology, may be driven primarily by free services like Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Hangout and Facebook's new Skype integration, analysts say.

Strategy Analytic's Ben Piper, who was an early critic of Cisco's (Nasdaq: CSCO) home video conferencing system, umi, which carried a price tag of $600 and cost $25 a month, said consumers are fine with free video chat apps, but are less incined to conduct chats on their TV sets. Only 35 percent of respondents to a recent SA survey showed interest, Piper said. That dropped to 18 percent if the price was more than $5 a month.

But Matt Davis, director of consumer and SMB telecom services at IDC, said that might be more a function of lack of awareness than anything else, predicting the numbers will tick higher as HD videoconferencing on TVs becomes more ubiquitous and current low-end video chat users pine for better quality.

Skype, for example, has announced it will offer Skype vide chat access to its subscribers, which is likely to increase awareness rapidly and increase usage if the service is adequate, said IBC analyst Irene Berlinsky.

For more:
- see this Light Reading article

Related articles:
Is videoconferencing market due for cloud burst?
Video-conferencing: A revolution on the verge of discovery
Must-have tech tools for SMBs focus on unified communications