From the perspective of Cisco CEO John Chambers, interactive, high-definition teleconferencing that’s so sharp you can see the sweat on the hand of a poker player will deliver both the perfect storm and a perfect spring day to IT. Even as it forces network capacity upgrades, it’s going to cut corporate travel bills, enhance customer contacts and boost productivity, he said.
Chambers, appearing at Gartner’s ITxpo in Orlando, is obviously an evangelist for network-engorging applications, given his company’s business. But when questioned by analysts at the conference, which drew some 6,000 attendees, Chambers argued that collaboration involving Web and communications technologies will become a key source of productivity gains for companies.
Collaboration, said Chambers, will emerge from unified communications — data, voice and video — and from the fact that those communications will be mobile. “The future isn’t about a mobile device by itself, it is how they come together,” he said.
Missing from Chambers’ discussion was how these technologies will be adopted by companies, especially those that see face-to-face meetings as paramount.
Among those listening to Chambers was Cary Caldwell, corporate applications manager at American United Life Insurance in Indianapolis. Caldwell believes that what will move companies into things like videoconferencing is people such as his 24-year-old son.
“When he and his buddies get into the world of business, I think they are going to demand that sort of thing,” said Caldwell. “They are going to demand more services over the Web; they are going to demand things like videoconferencing vs. travel.”
Caldwell said that part of what will motivate younger workers to utilize these technologies will the knowledge of “what people like me have gone through over the years in terms of travel,” he said. “I think you are going to see a rebellion over that sort of thing from the younger generation.”
One of the themes set by Gartner analysts at this year’s conference has been the need for senior, and often older, IT managers to find ways to incorporate the culture and ideas of younger workers into IT planning. Otherwise, those senior workers risk falling behind the technology curve.
But this younger generation will also force network capacity upgrades. YouTube, which Google said this week it is buying for $1.65 billion, is just a “very basic application,” said Chambers, with 100 million daily downloads. But with the arrival of high-definition video — which will allow viewers to interact and even modify what they see — network loads will increase by 300% to 500%, he said.
Chambers summed up his view of video this way: “If there is such a thing as a killer application, it is the killer application for network load, and it’s also the killer application for collaboration.”
David Rotman, CIO at Cedarville University in Ohio, is now using videoconferencing to interview prospective employees. He believes that students — once they enter the workforce — will help drive adoption of these technologies. “Students are using webcams to call home,” he said.
Another attendee, John Reis, who manages a team of systems administrators at The Boeing Co., said the biggest issue is that he doesn’t think people have found a way to be comfortable “getting done what they need to get done entirely through that medium.” But he believes adoption could come as people get used to telecommuting, for instance, and gradually add video to the tools they are already using to collaborate with one another, he said.
