This week Cisco kicked off its annual collaboration summit and announced a number of products that support the company vision. There were many new product announcements (Eric's article posted earlier has all of the details) that support collaboration, with the main theme cutting through all of them being video. There's no one out there that should be surprised by this, as Cisco has repeatedly stated that video is the "new voice" since the company acquired video pure play vendor Tandberg.
This raises the obvious questions: Is video the new voice and, if so, why video and why now? We've all heard the proclamation in past years, that "this is the year of video!!" and it never happens. Think back to Y2K, 9/11, market crashes, etc. We talk about video and then it never happens. This time though, I do think it's different and for many reasons:
* Cultural barriers around video have finally fallen. Remember the days that people said, "Who would want a camera on a phone??" The answer is, teens that like to snap pics of anything and everything and immediately post them to Facebook. Then when YouTube came into our lives people asked, "Who would post videos of themselves??” The answer is, teens that like to see themselves on camera. Then we asked, "Who would want a Flip??" The answer is the same. Now the majority of people asking this question are old people that still prefer to use the phone and e-mail over social networking tools. Also, many of those teens and college kids that I referenced are now in the work place. This new current generation of workers and those in the future will expect it.
* Video is already everywhere. From a consumer perspective, we have near-pervasive video. Facebook, ichat, laptops, iPhone’s, Flips, digital cameras, YouTube, video blogs, Flikr, Apple TV, the Nintendo DSi, Xbox, Sprint’s EVO, Skype, etc. In case you hadn’t noticed, video is everywhere--except the workplace. In the work environment, we’ve been scared to deploy video and catered to the luddites that didn’t want it. But the younger generation will influence the collaboration tools we use like my generation did with email many, many years ago.
* Technology improvement. There should be no question that the video systems today are easier to use than previous generations. Cisco's been using the term "as easy to do as a phone call" but in many ways, video should be easier. Sure, point to point phone calls are easy, but three way calls, even multi party conferences with PIN codes and security codes are a hassle. Video should basically be click to call, or even easier, push to call.
* Cisco’s influence. One of Cisco's strengths has always been painting a vision for the industry and then leading the rest of the industry to it. Prior to Cisco getting into video there really wasn’t a "thought leader" driving the vision of where video is going forward. Polycom was arguably the mindshare leader, but Polycom had as much vision as Larry Ellison has love for Microsoft. Polycom stuck with the age old truths that video saved money on travel and people retained info better (which is true) but didn’t advance the thinking. Cisco's integration of video into UC allowed workers to change the way people worked. If you look across the entire UC landscape, Avaya's the only other vendor that’s trying to change the collaboration experience (Flare) and why I believe Cisco and Avaya will pull away from the pack. Microsoft will make a bunch of noise with Lync and probably put a hurting on the ShoreTels of the world at the low end, but video and mobility are not core to Microsoft. I'm expecting the usual onslaught of negative comments to my blog from the Microsoft fan club, but celebrating basic telephony features shows how far behind Microsoft is. Additionally, I do like the Cisco tie in between real time collaboration and VDI. Looking ahead, workers are going to want to use tablets, smart phones, desktops, laptops running Windows, Mac and Android. Desktop virtualization is the only way to deliver any application to any device and scale it.
Cisco's belief is by democratizing video by building it into all of their end points, workers will start to use video more. If cost is the main barrier to greater adoption, the inclusion of video for "free" (or near free) will allow that barrier to fall. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don't think Cisco is making any kind of big sacrifice by making video more affordable. As one Cisco executive, who I will leave nameless, said to me a little while ago, "if we happen to sell a few more CRS-1s along the way, then so be it" (this was before Cisco announced CRS-3 and "changed the world").
The biggest barrier to broader use of video left is intercompany capabilities. Cisco is actively working with its service provider partners to have this limitation removed but, for some reason, the service providers haven’t been as aggressive with this as I thought they would be, particularly regarding cross-carrier video. There are some carriers (cough, cough AT&T) that really need to support this more, and then video can be pervasive. Even if the carriers don’t, the over the top solutions will continue to get better and we'll eventually not need the support from the major telcos.
Cisco's drive to deliver video everywhere is well timed with respect to industry and technology innovation. Do I expect the transition to happen overnight? Of course not, but the transition to video as a mainstream collaboration tool will happen faster than people think.
