Video conferencing made easy
Video conferencing can undoubtedly aid the productivity of a business, but the technology can often be expensive and only limited to boardrooms. Could integrating the technology with mobile devices bring costs down and ultimately take it to the mass-market?
The traditional method of boardroom video conferencing has been marred with difficulties ever since its introduction – it is often limited, costly, complex to install, and therefore only available to large corporations with big budgets.
Even for those companies able to afford the technology, it is still often only available to a limited few within a team.
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That’s why Avaya, a specialist in video collaboration and communications solutions, is not just targeting big corporations, it is also delivering solutions to small-medium businesses by making the technology available on mobile devices and opening it up to existing video conferencing hardware.
Avaya A/NZ managing director Tim Gentry says that this flexibility was previously unavailable in the video market. He even goes as far as saying that the video conferencing and telepresence markets have ultimately failed up until this point.
“When it was introduced, the technology promised to save businesses money on travel and help colleagues collaborate with each other. This simply hasn’t been the case.
“Not everybody was connected within a company – it was usually only the top-end management who could communicate with each other. Even then, they usually had to be in their executive boardrooms to use the technology,” Tim says.
“It was a failure of a marketplace because it was complex, there was no intelligence in the video stream to cater for different bandwidths and it was too expensive for a small business to carry.”
The cost of the systems has undoubtedly limited the number of businesses that have been able to use video as a viable tool within the workplace, however the complexity of systems has also been prohibitive to the growth of the technology in a wider sense.
“Every time you wanted to make a call you’d have to get the IT guy to come into the room just to get it working,” Tim says.
That’s why, by lowering the cost of video conferencing and making it simpler to use, Avaya is aiming to change the primary demographic of the technology.
“These days you can buy an Android device for under $100 and we can send video directly to that device from a room-based system. This makes these tools much more accessible to everybody within a company.”
Additionally, a major hurdle with video conferencing was that systems have often been tied to a proprietary manufacturer; not allowing communication with users on different systems.
“Video technology is currently designed in a way that a Samsung Galaxy can talk to another Samsung Galaxy, but it can’t communicate with an iPhone. We want them all to be able to talk to each other,” Tim explains.
“We want to take an agnostic standpoint, encouraging other brands to be integrated into our system and letting customers choose what they want to deploy. You can use Samsung, iPhone, Cisco, Polycom, or Avaya, it doesn’t matter – we just ‘sit’ in the middle and allow you to connect.
“When you pick up your phone and call somebody, you don’t know what phone they’re using. This should be the same for video,” Tim adds.
However, regardless of the quality of your device – if you’re using a connection with low bandwidth, you’ll experience problems. This has also been a qualm that many users have had in the past.
“A big problem in Australia and many other countries is that bandwidth isn’t great all the time, so there needs to be added intelligence in video to optimise it for the current connection,” Tim says.
“The video could start off with 10Mbps, but then easily go down to 256kbps. We put intelligence into the stream of the data so it can scale appropriately. So we can start at 10Mbps, but switch down to 256kbps and still have HD quality. We can then burst back up if higher bandwidth becomes available.
“Many other technologies will start at a speed like 10Mbps, but if it drops to 256kbps, they’ll keep pushing at the higher rate, and that’s when you get choppy video.”
Specifics aside, Tim says that ultimately, clients simply want a system that works seamlessly, without them having to worry about how or why it works.
“We’re trying to make the whole process more user-friendly and more affordable. That way, small-medium businesses can start to leverage the technology. Once we get those smaller companies on board, that’s when it will naturally reach the masses, and that’s when we will see an uptrend in the technology as a whole.”
He adds that when the reliability of the technology is apparent, that’s when companies can simply focus on the major positives of the technology – the ability for firms to collaborate, and save time and money by reducing travel.
“Collaboration in the business environment is a massive boost,” Tim says.
“Companies that are successful are the ones that collaborate and are effective at communicating.
“It’s also the ones with the best staff. If there is an employer is based in Sydney, but the best man for his job is in Perth, he shouldn’t have to settle for second best in Sydney. We can enable that.
“It’s no longer about who can get the better technology – it’s about who can use the technology to better their business and solve customer problems.”
That’s why something so simple as being able to see an employee or contractor can make all the difference.
“Many employers don’t like teleworkers as they can’t see who they’re talking to,” Tim says.
“And sending job information via email is even worse – you have to just assume that the person has read it. Whereas if you can see each other, you know if the person understood it, if they have any questions, or if they are so busy that they can’t talk at all. That’s something that we underestimate, and that’s where I think the technology is most powerful.”
The big question for installers is: if manufacturers are looking to bring the cost of video conferencing down, is it still a profitable venture for them?
“We make it profitable through our partner model,” Tim explains.
“Unlike some other companies who strangle their value chain, we believe in making sure our partner model is healthy and we can help work with our installers, so they have the ability to consult with customers.”
“They can then make other changes to the environment and upgrade. They can also give support – when customers try and deploy video, they realise they have the wrong wiring or sometimes they don’t have the right version of code.”
Tim adds that the biggest value for installers comes not purely from profit margin, but from becoming a company that can present an ongoing solution for a client.
“This opens up new conversations with clients. You’re no longer just like every other company trying to give the lowest price – you’re a value-added service which makes you much more relevant.
“We’re finding that the biggest hurdle for our company is a customer that has already been burned by video in the past.”
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