Video Conferencing

[DieScum]

With the news that Cisco has recently acquired Tandberg to take a 40% share of the video conferencing market I have turned my thoughts to this interesting sector.

So Tandberg sells video conferencing systems. Which is what? A TV, a good quality video camera, connected to a video link that links to other video conferencing systems.

So this means that meetings can be held remotely rather than face to face saving costs.

Now Tandberg were pulling 800 million dollars and sold for billions.... but with the growth of Skype, and things like webex and livemeeting, I kind of fail to see why people are paying big bucks for Tandberg kit.

So do any of you deal with video conferencing? Why do people buy it and what is the value proposition against something like skype?

[cojak]

With the news that Cisco has recently acquired Tandberg to take a 40% share of the video conferencing market I have turned my thoughts to this interesting sector.

So Tandberg sells video conferencing systems. Which is what? A TV, a good quality video camera, connected to a video link that links to other video conferencing systems.

So this means that meetings can be held remotely rather than face to face saving costs.

Now Tandberg were pulling 800 million dollars and sold for billions.... but with the growth of Skype, and things like webex and livemeeting, I kind of fail to see why people are paying big bucks for Tandberg kit.

So do any of you deal with video conferencing? Why do people buy it and what is the value proposition against something like skype?

Skype is fine for one to one meetings sitting at your desk, but when you need to communicate to multiple teams across multiple locations and possibly use PowerPoint/Excel etc you need meatier software and hardware to handle it.

[DieScum]

Skype is fine for one to one meetings sitting at your desk, but when you need to communicate to multiple teams across multiple locations and possibly use PowerPoint/Excel etc you need meatier software and hardware to handle it

Fair enough but, maybe on a slightly different tack, webex handles this (up to a a point) just without the video conferencing.

What business situations require a face on the screen rather than just a voice on the phone?

[Churchill]

Fair enough but, maybe on a slightly different tack, webex handles this (up to a a point) just without the video conferencing.

What business situations require a face on the screen rather than just a voice on the phone?

"You're Fired!!!" has a much better effect when you can see the victims face.

Hth.

[cojak]

Fair enough but, maybe on a slightly different tack, webex handles this (up to a a point) just without the video conferencing.

What business situations require a face on the screen rather than just a voice on the phone?

It does make a difference, interacting between groups of people is much more difficult to manage than 1-to-1. You stop talking then your colleague replies. Facilitating meetings is much easier when you can see people. You can gauge reactions, resistance, agreement instead of second-guessing silence.

I've even trained over a video conference. It wasn't perfect but it was better than nothing, particularly for delegate interaction.

Netmeeting tends to encourage the main speaker imparting knowledge without the audience able to easily question or add anything to the mix.

[threaded]

Fair enough but, maybe on a slightly different tack, webex handles this (up to a a point) just without the video conferencing.

What business situations require a face on the screen rather than just a voice on the phone?

One of my clients: their senior programmers and management found WebEx too difficult to use.

If someone made it idiot proof that'd be a winner.

[Olly]

is also about the pipe you use to connect the sites..running tidy conferencing really needs a leased line sort of thingy with packet marking stuff and things...

[interested]

With the news that Cisco has recently acquired Tandberg to take a 40% share of the video conferencing market I have turned my thoughts to this interesting sector.

So Tandberg sells video conferencing systems. Which is what? A TV, a good quality video camera, connected to a video link that links to other video conferencing systems.

So this means that meetings can be held remotely rather than face to face saving costs.

Now Tandberg were pulling 800 million dollars and sold for billions.... but with the growth of Skype, and things like webex and livemeeting, I kind of fail to see why people are paying big bucks for Tandberg kit.

So do any of you deal with video conferencing? Why do people buy it and what is the value proposition against something like skype?

Telepresence is great. Use it all the time.

[DieScum]

It does make a difference, interacting between groups of people is much more difficult to manage than 1-to-1. You stop talking then your colleague replies. Facilitating meetings is much easier when you can see people. You can gauge reactions, resistance, agreement instead of second-guessing silence.

I've even trained over a video conference. It wasn't perfect but it was better than nothing, particularly for delegate interaction.

Netmeeting tends to encourage the main speaker imparting knowledge without the audience able to easily question or add anything to the mix.

That makes sense.

I wonder if there is a business opportunity there for a remote training company.

It's hard to quantify these things though. Yes it's nice to be able to see a face to gauge a reaction... but how much is that worth? If you had to stick your hand in your own pocket how much would you be willing to pay for it.

[DieScum]

One of my clients: their senior programmers and management found WebEx too difficult to use.

If someone made it idiot proof that'd be a winner.

What did they find difficult?