Conference calls and collaboration needs an overhaul to fit better in this consumer-oriented VoIP, video and social age. Too many platforms, complicated dial-ins and keeping clients up to date, make the experience miserable. Polycom wants to change that, with new software. Yes, software. Read more »
European Union’s decision to approve the Microsoft & Skype merger without any objection isn’t sitting well with Cisco, the unified communications giant who is worried that Microsoft will use Skype to dominate the video calling industry. Sour grapes for a company caught in it own business-model. Read more »
In a weird way, the lack of enthusiasm around this week’s CTIA Enterprise and Applications show demonstrates just how consumer-driven the mo… Read more at paidContent »
The video conferencing market is getting inundated with new products focused on bringing collaboration tools to the large number of small and medium-sized businesses that can’t afford a traditional teleconference room. But will they be able to compete with products that are already “good enough”? Read more »
One of the major drawbacks with traditional room-based telepresence installs is that systems from different vendors are typically incompatible with each other. Video conferencing and online meeting provider FuzeBox, makers of the Fuze Meeting service, announced Fuze Telepresence Connect, which hopes to overcome these interoperability problems. Read more »
Video conferencing company Polycom is moving upmarket by agreeing to buy the assets of HP’s Visual Collaboration business, including its Halo Products and Managed Services division, in a $90 million deal that will put Polycom in more direct competition with Cisco Read more »
Just about every business-oriented VoIP phone, and even many cellphones, come with a speakerphone these days. But such speakers are often poor, and I decided to see how much difference a really good phone could make, like the Polycom SoundStation IP 6000 conference phone. Read more »
Predicting what not to expect in mobile next year is a lot easier than predicting what will happen. You can be sure, for instance, that consumers won’t pay for on-the-go TV next year any more than they have in the past, and that carriers won’t embrace ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Skype’s recent plans for an IPO, along with many new features (including some geared for enterprise customers), mean the VoIP carrier is finally crossing from niche tool to mainstream service. But past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Skype’s freemium model is risky, and ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Enterprise use of real-time videoconferencing is on the verge of explosion. A short but critical list of demand and supply side factors have converged to fuel unprecedented rates of adoption of a wide spectrum of technologies in this sector. Even so, a rosy future for the industry is not necessarily assured, and several critical factors retard growth. This report examines these enablers and retardants of the adoption of a wide spectrum of current generation videoconferencing solutions, and offers recommendations to enterprises looking for opportunity in this sector. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
At the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in January, the home electronics industry was all abuzz about 3DTV. While this was certainly an important topic, most of the press and analysts in attendance missed the much bigger story about television: video chat. As two-way, real-time video comes to a broad range of devices from TVs to mobile phones, video chat will account for 11 billion calls worldwide by 2015. This report is a comprehensive analysis of the video communications and chat market across the TV, mobile and computer markets. It examines key market players, such as Skype, Google, Cisco, Apple and others, and includes comprehensive subscriber, usage and revenue forecasts through 2015. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A group of companies have formed an alliance aimed at removing all the annoyances around unified communications, dubbed the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum. Notably, the group is made up of Cisco competitors, and does not include the maker of unified communications hardware. Read more »
Juniper and Polycom will deliver products and services to answer the looming threat Cisco plays in the videoconferencing space. But by taking a page from Cisco’s playbook, they may have doomed themselves to failure. Instead of marrying the network and device, they should open things up. Read more »
OnSIP, from Junction Networks, offers professional, flexible, business-oriented Internet phone systems for business that could be a good value, depending on your needs. What You Get OnSIP offers most of the features one would expect from such systems, including call routing, voicemail, business hours rules, and […] Read more »
First Cisco Systems decided to buy Norwegian video conferencing equipment maker Tandberg for about $3 billion. This week, Logitech, a Swiss computer peripherals maker, acquired LifeSize, an Austin, Texas-based private company, for about $405 million in cash. The two deals have brought the fast-growing but often-overlooked […] Read more »
