Virtual meetings needn’t break the bank. Tom Otley reviews the new world of web-conferencing and asks if this could be the answer to increasing travel costs.
Even the most fervent apostles of video-conferencing would concede that some meetings can only be done face to face. Nevertheless, as travel costs soar, every company is looking to reduce its travel expenditure, and video-conferencing is an increasingly popular option. What makes it particularly attractive is that there are so many price points and levels that can be adopted, from free to several hundred thousand pounds.
At the free end of things, there are applications such as Skype, the VOIP internet software that not only allows you to make cut-price calls but also now has the ability to make video calls. One up from these is Webex, which is the leader in online conferencing (61 per cent market share, Frost and Sullivan 2006), a position it has held for several years. It has 2.5 million registered users and over 28,000 corporate subscribers, and says that an average of 80,000 Webex meetings are held every day.
So what is it like to use? Well, the first point is that, while it is possible to have your fellow web-conference attendees appear on your screen, the picture quality isn’t going to make this a compelling proposition. Instead, what Webex does is make it easy to share documents or walk someone through, for instance, a PowerPoint presentation or screen a video, without having to travel and stand in front of them. You can show people what is on your desktop, and even give them control over your computer if necessary. Webex allows for the conference to take place either using a headset attached to the USB socket on your computer or, more conventionally, simply by dialling into the conference using your desk phone as you would with a normal teleconference.
Webex has several advantages over conventional video-conferencing. Firstly, you don’t need to buy equipment, and the software is inexpensive, at £42 per person per month (minimum three-month contract). At that price, you can try it for the price of the fuel surcharge on a long-haul flight.
Secondly, using the technology you can organise a web-conference with anyone who has a computer. They don’t need to download any software to take part, and when you send them an invitation, if they accept, it drops into their Microsoft Outlook diary and includes all the log-on details.
The upfront cost of hardware is a significant obstacle to companies considering implementing video-conferencing, but if you have an IP phone system (many companies do), then you are already halfway towards a rather more sophisticated video-conferencing system, and can begin to look at applications such as that offered by Avaya. Chris Barrow, solutions marketing manager EMEA for Avaya, says: “The basis of any video-conferencing solution is an IP phone system. It’s the foundation of what we do. We then build a system to make a unified communication system (UCS), which is an application that sits on top of the IP system.”
By adopting a UCS, companies can begin to make efficiencies and savings, according to Barrow says. “It is the bringing together of all forms of communication to a unified interface for the user,”he says. “It means that whether I choose to use my telephone, mobile phone, PC or my PDA to communicate, the facilities should be available to me and should be closely matched and have the same user interface. In other words, I can set up a video call in the same way I set up a voice call.”
It is this “keeping it simple” that Avaya sees as the real draw for time-pressed business people. Barrow says: “One of the obstacles to the adoption of video-conferencing is that for a long time it has been seen as a bit of a black art that only the IT guys understand. And then they would keep that knowledge a closely guarded secret because knowledge is power. The result was that video wasn’t being adopted and it was easier to jump on a plane.”
It also helps avoid another substantial upfront investment. “The attraction for small companies here is that they don’t have to buy lots of expensive video-conferencing kit,” says Barrow (although all companies in this arena make the point that upgrading equipment will mean better sound and pictures).
“At the bottom end, we have made video-conferencing as easy as a call conference,” adds Barrow. “It starts with a £20 web USB camera and plugging it into a PC. The PC is then linked to the telephone, so that when you dial someone, what will happen is that the two devices will work out they are video-enabled, and a dialogue box will pop up on-screen, giving you the choice of talking in this way.”
So what’s the difference between this and VOIP, which after all is free? “Anyone trying our system for the first time certainly wouldn’t go back,” says Barrow. “That said, for one-to-one conversations, you do have to ask ‘am I getting anything from a video conversation that I couldn’t get from a one-to-one phone call?’ But for a more formal conference call where you are having a team meeting and you want to get a number of people together with people spread all over the world, it does become useful.
“You can have someone in the BA lounge at Heathrow with their wifi internet access, someone at home, another in the office, and they all dial into a central resource, and all those images can be on the screen with five or six pictures. It means the man in the airport lounge on a slow connection can still, using the camera or just the phone, have a place at the table.
“At the simplest level it is just linking your PC and your telephone together – so you have the possibilities of the single corporate directory, the single dial plan and it doesn’t matter whether you use instant messages, voice or video. This software is the UCS, and once you have it, your options are much greater, because you can start asking yourself whether you should implement a proper video strategy.”
Kees Hoogstraate is European marketing manager for video-conferencing at Sony. He says: “We have different tier levels of products, but for business-to-business applications we emphasise hardware or appliance-based solutions rather than just software laid on top of existing systems.”
The reason, according to Hoogstraate, is that “the resources on the Windows platform that you are using for applications on your PC, such as Outlook, are already being used close to their maximum and that could compromise [video-conferencing] quality”.
Sony’s dedicated hardware starts with individual systems such as the TL33P (17-inch screen, IP only) and the TL50 (20-inch screen, IP and ISDN – it also facilitates a multi-point system allowing the user to dial directly from their desk to bring five other parties in one call). There are then group-based systems such as the PCS-1P, G50 and G70, which are multi-monitor, multi-camera systems which can also record audio and video for playing back later on your laptop.
Of course, buying an individual system isn’t much of a saving if your system doesn’t talk to systems by other providers, such as Tandberg or Polycom. All providers work hard on making this happen. Hoogstraate says: “It’s no good having a Nokia phone not calling a Sony Ericsson one. We are working in a connected world and, in general, the systems do talk to one another.
“We are all working to the same governing telecom standards which are split into IP and ISDN, and we all try and comply with this. There are exceptions, especially with the very high-end systems, but this doesn’t happen on the more mainstream products because it would kill the market.”
The beauty of these systems is that, once the basic infrastructure is in place, there can be a gradual upgrade in equipment as the video-conferencing solution is used more within a company. “We recognise that this might be the first investment which is only enabling IP communication,” says Hoogstraate, “so later on you might add multi-point function capability allowing you to join others to the VC. We don’t bundle as a standard, customers are free to form their own customised solution.”
Bob Johnson is COO of Dialcom, which sells Spontania, a software-only solution which enables many-to-many interactive voice, video and data-collaboration sessions on the most common devices – PCs, PDAs, mobile phones and fixed phones. He says: “The reason video-conferencing hasn’t taken off is because the big guys have a vested interest in selling you things – it’s all about upgrading your infrastructure and selling more network components. An organisation could be spending half a million bucks and it would take months to put in a foundation on which they can try to do something and yet what they are offering on top of that isn’t even integrated. We offer a software interface which allows you to move from VC to telephone calls, to file sharing to email, with the click of a button. That’s why our system is called Spontania.”
Johnson adds: “What people want is integration of all the components without having to buy a lot of new stuff. All people need is a server to run our product. They don’t even need an IP phone system – we have our own. We will tie into whatever they have; 3G phone, PC or PDA.”
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