Finally, a simple appliance for desktop videoconferencing
Desktop videoconferencing has long promised to improve group communication and
productivity; unfortunately, the list of challenges businesses need to overcome in
order to implement wide-scale desktop videoconferencing quickly boggles the mind. Few
companies have overcome these obstacles to the point that their users truly forget the
technology and reap the potential benefits of desktop conferencing applications.
The good news is that the list of barriers I've noted (
& Video forum) to the deployment of reliable, business-quality video on your
intranet is getting shorter by the quarter. With the video-over-IP networking products
introduced by
and White Pine Software in the past six
months, some of the usability issues formerly plaguing realtime video over IP to the
desktop are being addressed.
This week at Networld+Interop,
points for PCs, will be showing its first IP-only desktop videoconferencing appliance.
VCON's ViGO includes a hardware accelerated video/audio encoder, camera, and speakers.
It hooks up to a desktop PC via a single USB connector, and its software installs
itself from VCON's Website.
By eliminating the complexity of cards, slots, and IRQs, ViGO makes desktop
videoconferencing as simple as using a set-top appliance for group or room conferencing
over ISDN. Best of all, the appliance has a sealed case, making it simpler for users
and technology managers. Simplicity is a big plus for me, considering that at least six
out of the last ten hardware units I've installed have had a conflict or some setting
that needed to be adjusted before the new and pre-existing components agreed with one
another. And if it's simple to install once, I can easily pick up the appliance and
install it again elsewhere.
Another reason I'm excited about VCON's personal conferencing product and similar
appliances is that, with the hardware integrated in the box, the quality of the
videoconference will not be limited by the end point's ability to capture and encode
the video in realtime. A PC with a camera on top of the monitor and encoder/decoder
software running on the computer's CPU usually produces video that is of lower quality
than business standards demand before it even leaves the source, and the video and
audio quality are often compromised further while in transit over IP segments that lack
QoS guarantees.
Unfortunately, VCON's "under $1,000" price point for a personal appliance remains
higher than most businesses can justify for thousands of users. In volume, however, the
price of a desktop videoconferencing appliance for IP networks may come within the
range acceptable to voice and data service providers (i.e., the network service
providers working with conferencing and visual communications ASPs) who are thinking of
adding video to their service roster. Simple and high-quality and personal
videoconferencing appliances could soon be bundled with a service relationship, the way
cable modems and DSL routers are included with their respective service agreements.
» posted by abennett
ITworld.com
Symantec Backup Exec 12 and Backup Exec System Recovery 8 deliver industry leading Windows data protection and system recovery. Download this whitepaper to find out the top reasons to upgrade and how to get continuous data protection and complete system recovery.
Data and system loss — from a hard drive failure, malicious attack, natural disaster, or simple human error — can happen anytime. Don’t leave your business vulnerable. Make sure you have a secure recovery strategy in place. Symantec's latest backup and system recovery technology can efficiently restore critical applications, individual emails and documents and even restore your entire system in minutes in the event of a loss.
Businesses face a growing challenge to ensure that the IT environment is properly protected. Backup Exec 12 integrates with other applications in the Symantec family of products, to complement your current data protection strategy, keep your data securely backed up and make it recoverable when you need it most.
