If you look at the numbers, you can see that room systems are playing a leading role in video conferencing deployment in the enterprise world. These are those bulky terminals that are connected to a large LCD display and are wired into the heart of the meeting room.
One of our numerous meeting rooms at RADVISION
For some arcane reason (probably cost and bandwidth availability), these room systems have long dominated the market. Want to call someone using video? No problem: Go book a room, make sure there's no meeting there, that no one is using the room to give some presentation to their peers, that the system is actually up and running, that the room on the other side of the globe is also available at that same time. Piece of cake. NOT. John Bartlett from NetForecast wrote about room systems on NoJitter:
Typical utilization for room-based video conferencing systems is in the 10% to 25% range for well utilized rooms.
In light of what I wrote in the last paragraph, there's no real wonder utilization is so low. With so many barriers for video calling, sometimes I feel I might as well fly over instead.
What really ticked me off with John's post, even though was from a different angle, was the fact that he separated the video conferencing usage models into two: room systems and personal. I am sorry, but for me there is only a single experience--the hybrid one, which I simply call visual communications--much like Larry Lisser who switched to using this term.
And what exactly does this hybrid thingy look like?
During 2008, and then at a greater force in 2009, an interesting thing happened in the enterprise world--people started using personal conferencing endpoints a lot more to join meetings, either "executive systems" that sit on their desks like our new VC240 or software clients like our SCOPIA Desktop.
Personal video conferencing has been the main means of communication here in RADVISION. The result? More people here are using video conferencing. They are doing it without being forced into the experience, and in ways that makes them want to schedule such meetings in the future. It simply works.
For any given meeting today, I can decide whether to go to the designated meeting room (if such is scheduled for the call) or join the meeting "remotely" through my "personal" endpoint. If I am a major contributor and need to be present for the entire meeting, or if the meeting is near to my office, I will usually go to the conference room. I'll opt for using an endpoint if I am out of the premises or if I am required only for certain parts of the meeting--in which case, I'll be a silent listener, doing other things (think emails) and only jumping in to participate when the time comes.
A typical hybrid meeting at RADVISION
Room systems are going to remain the pillar of conferencing. As Larry says, Visual Communications are going to be more - much more. And the actual experience is going to be a richer one, when compared to simply splitting the market into room systems and desktops.
