Videoconferencing rivals Polycom and Tandberg are enhancing their products to let users launch video calls from an instant-message chat session rather than from a dedicated videoconferencing interface.
Both companies are working with Microsoft real-time communications and IM software, Live Communications Server 2005, to combine the presence data with information about the kind of communication devices, such as the type of video endpoints, a given user may have at his disposal. Presence information and call initiation capability is aggregated inside Office Communicator, the latest IM application from Microsoft.
With Polycom gear, a video call is initiated from Office Communicator but handed off to the users’ respective video endpoint, be it the company’s PVX desktop video application or a more traditional VSX group system, to conduct the call. Tandberg takes the integration a step further by allowing direct communication between its traditional endpoint products and Office Communicator, which is essentially a software-based Session Initiation Protocol audio/video endpoint.
Tandberg also optimized its multi-point control unit (MCU) line to be able to add Office Communicator users into a multi-site video meeting.
“All of the major [videoconferencing] players are jumping on” Live Communications Server, says Andrew Davis, managing partner at Wainhouse Research. “They’re adopting the Microsoft infrastructure story and developing compatibility with Microsoft endpoints, since [Office Communicator] will be everywhere soon.”
Polycom’s Keith LeFebvre, vice president of product marketing and management, echoes Davis’ sentiment, saying that while Office Communicator could be considered competition to the PVX application, Microsoft’s involvement in video and IM will only help legitimize the field.
“The industry is stuck in an installed-base situation; they’re convinced already, but there’s not a lot of new converts,” LeFebvre says. “With instant messaging, people started using at home, and it became a grass-roots thing that IT had to support. We want the same thing to happen with video.”
In addition to their respective integration efforts with Microsoft, Polycom and Tandberg made a number of other announcements last week at the Wainhouse Summit in Boston.
Polycom is simplifying its line of videoconferencing endpoint options by eliminating the older iPower and ViewStation systems and reshuffling its current VSX series. The ViewStation and iPower still will be supported for the foreseeable future, LeFebvre says.
Polycom is adding a VSX 5000 entry-level group unit priced at about $4,000; created two new VSX 7000 units – a standard set-top device with integrated camera (about $7,000) and a rack-appliance for custom rooms (about $9,000). The company also is shipping Version 8.0 of its PVX desktop software that now includes the ability to share both video and data content simultaneously in a call.
Julie Lytle, telemedicine coordinator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, likes the PVX’s user-friendly interface and $149 price. “It’s a price point where you can justify to be able to deploy more widely than with a $10,000 appliance or, in the past, $60,000 [PictureTel] Concorde.”
Tandberg is just as busy, releasing the new MPS 200, a midsize MCU capable of handling up to 32 video and 32 audio connections at a time. MPS 200 starts at $47,000. Both the Tandberg Gatekeeper and Border Controller products are being beefed up as well with software upgrades boosting their simultaneous call capability from 20 to 100. The company also enhanced the call-routing capability in its Tandberg Management Suite software to better deal with network components that may go down or fail.
