VoiceCon Preview: Exploring Enterprise Video

At the beginning of this year, Skype CEO Jost Silverman said this about video: "At the very least, real-time video is getting us closer to where the communication medium itself becomes almost invisible, letting people themselves be the platform." The push for video in enterprise and individual communications seems so natural--bringing our long distance communication back to the most basic original form of human interaction, face to face. Over the last several months companies' have announced advances in their telepresence systems, mergers with other companies and deals to make the various systems companies choose to go with compatible with one another. 

Just this week, Polycom announced they were bringing their personal video systems to Apple computers--riding the wave of Mac popularity that has grown with the success of the iPhone. Polycom's CMA Desktop video collaboration app now works with Mac OS X so companies that traditionally use Macs for their business computers (it used to be mainly creative services and education) can take advantage of video communications. Prior to this announcement they announced an interoperability partnership with Avaya. A week ago, Cisco launched the CRS-3 and the clear consensus was that this Internet super router was meant handle all the video communications data traffic we could throw at it. With innovations like this, the future for video collaboration is indeed bright.

At VoiceCon, participants can check out a number of discussions about launching their own video collaboration systems or expanding their current systems as expectation grows for ubiquitous video use. On Monday, the Personal Video Conferencing in Enterprise panel will explore the difference between tradition room-based telepresence and new personal video technologies. Skype, Radvision, Polycom, IOCOM, Glowpoint, Cisco, NetForecast and Wainhouse Research will all be on hand to discuss desktop video deployments.

On Tuesday, a panel called Extending Video Across the Enterprise Boundary explores the problems and possibilities of making video calls and having telepresence meetings with outside organizations using compatible video equipment. Unlike our PSTN phone systems where interoperability is guaranteed, such functionality does not come standard on the video frontier. Traditionally telepresence has mainly been used within the enterprise--ensuring the same equipment is used--but if we want these systems to be even more useful, communicating in this way with our clients, customers and business partners will need to become as easy as picking up the phone. The issues of inter-enterprise video conferencing will be tackled by representatives from Vidtel, Tandberg, NetForecast, Cisco and MASERGY. 

For more check out VoiceCon's Enterprise Video schedule...