SEVEN OBSTACLES OF THE PAST
The videoconferencing industry has overcome many challenges in its 25-year history. It is worth reviewing some of the major issues of the past when contemplating how these are or are not different when heading into the future.
Interoperability. Early systems used proprietary algorithms so that devices from one vendor could not communicate with those of another. Even after the ITU standards became de-rigueur for every vendor, the standards themselves contained enough leeway that interoperability was often not achieved. Today, these issues in the worlds of H.323 (IP) and H.320 (ISDN) video are largely behind us, and when they do crop up, they are solved by industry-supported interoperability testing events in which engineers from competing vendors work to resolve connection problems. Interoperability testing works well in principle, but each vendor still has some proprietary hardware or unique features designed to provide competitive advantage.
Moving forward, we would expect to see the same situation develop in the growing world of SIP-based videoconferencing--that is, a move to establish interoperability between all SIP-based solutions. We still expect to see some desktop solutions that do not interoperate with systems that enterprises have deployed in their conference rooms (Skype is a prime example). This leads to two islands of communications – desktop and room. Most of the enterprise desktop solutions available today do support protocols to communicate with their room system sisters, a capability that always ranks high on the requirements list of enterprise users; however, the videoconferencing vendors have also had to develop interoperability software for their systems to work with OCS 2007. For highly deployed desktop solutions, like Skype, we anticipate that some enterprising vendor somewhere will build a Skype to SIP or H.323 gateway (we are aware of one such gateway developed by RSDevs.
Low Quality Experiences. Early videoconferencing systems suffered from poor quality video, low fidelity audio, and great difficulties in establishing and maintaining connections for the duration of calls. Many early videoconferencing essayers decided that the experience simply was not worth the aggravation one endured as compared to a normal voice call; nor did it provide the “connectedness” needed to avoid travel. Most of these issues have evaporated with advances in processor speed, audio and video algorithm sophistication, and network reliability. Today’s videoconferencing systems can provide up to HD video, wide-band CD quality audio, and can operate on reliable, always-on IP networks.
ISDN. While popular in Europe, ISDN in North America was implemented in a haphazard fashion and with sporadic availability. In some cases, users on one ISDN network could not communicate with systems on another carrier network. In most cases, ISDN was expensive to operate, with both a fixed monthly connection charge plus a per minute usage cost, a definite disincentive for customers to use their video systems. Higher-bandwidth ISDN calls required the bonding of multiple B channels, which proved to be a major contributor to connection problems and dropped calls. While ISDN services have improved in North America and remain strong in Europe, much of the customer base for videoconferencing is migrating to IP networks for videoconferencing. Broadband IP is very low cost on the local area network and becoming much more reasonable and available for wide area connections; furthermore, there is no per minute charge, which lets people enjoy all-you-can-consume video.
Island Isolation. Videoconferencing historically has been an island of communications in a sea of enterprise workflow. Traditionally, videoconferencing has required users to make cumbersome reservations and then go to special meeting rooms where they could use special video equipment deployed on a separate network. It should be no surprise that many knowledge workers found it easier to NOT use videoconferencing than to use it.
This “isolation” barrier is rapidly dissolving. With the pervasiveness of IP in virtually every office and meeting room, and with no per minute costs, enterprises are moving to reservation-less videoconferencing at both the desktop and room levels. In addition, vast changes in user interface designs are bringing videoconferencing into the workflow process and making video easier to use than ever. Nortel, Cisco, Avaya, and Siemens allow room video units to be integrated with their PBXs, enabling short extension dialing and easy integration of audio-only participants in a video-enabled meeting.
Desktop Complexity. Bringing videoconferencing to the desktop at one point in time was a complex issue. Early systems required tinkering with both the hardware and the Windows operating system drivers. In most enterprises, the desktop support staff could not support video, and the video support staff could not support the desktop. Today’s systems, in contrast, are much easier to use and support on a variety of fronts:
1.) They are all based on IP networking.
2.) Most use a webcam that simply plugs into the USB bus available on virtually every desktop and laptop. Even easier, many laptops now have a camera embedded in the bezel so that there is no additional hardware needed.
3.) Today’s videoconferencing applications are “all software” solutions that can configure themselves almost automatically and are generally well-tested against Windows XP and Vista environments. Some desktop solutions are browser-based, which means there is no software installation required; a simple browser plug-in will do. And some solutions are based on a client-server architecture where the server can provide automatic updates, multipoint capabilities, and a “click-to-call” list of other registered users, driving ease-of-use to new levels.
4.) Large companies like Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Nortel, Siemens, and a host of others are heavily promoting click-to-connect desktop videoconferencing through their unified communications desktop clients.
ROI Recognition. Understanding the return on videoconferencing investments has been a challenge. Wainhouse Research has characterized conferencing benefits in two categories, hard and soft. Hard benefits are those that are easy to identify and quantify; hard benefits lend themselves to spreadsheet analysis with pretty firm numbers. The best example of a hard benefit is travel savings where a manager can calculate and substantiate his savings in airfares, hotels, taxis etc. Our research however indicates that the soft benefits of videoconferencing generally outweigh the hard benefits, but the soft benefits are far more difficult to quantify and prove.
Examples of soft benefits are:
1) faster decision making leading to faster project completion and shorter time-to-market,
2) reduced executive stress from travel,
3) less professional time wasted with the inefficiencies of travel,
4) better work-family life balance,
5) ability to recruit over a wider geographic base with less cost and less wasted time coordinating multiple schedules.
What is changing as we head into the future is that soft benefits are being recognized by more and more enterprises who are attempting to accomplish more with fewer resources.
Cultural and Social Shifts. Many people in the past have expressed discomfort with being on video. Often this was exacerbated by the audio-video delays that caused lip sync issues and occasional video freezes that occurred during a video call. Employees entering the workforce today have grown up with the Internet, web-chat, video-chat, streaming archives, Skype, mobile handsets, YouTube etc. For many of these workers, video is a part of life and having a desktop webcam is as natural as having a telephone handset.
