Tandberg releases major updates

Tandberg, the number two provider of videoconferencing equipment, is making a big push to become Number One (now held by Polycom) with several new enhancements to its line of products. First, XGA support has been added to the Tandberg 8000, 6000, 2500, 1000 and 880 endpoints. XGA is key for sharing documents in a video call. Also, the company has added a new camera, the Wave II, to its line of group conferencing units. The Wave II has twice the range of motion as previous generations. On the software side, Tandberg is adding support for AES encryption for ISDN, IP and mixed calls to protect the content of a conference from electronic eavesdropping.

On the network front, Tandberg’s made major enhancements to its multi-point control unit, upping the number of simultaneous users to 16 video and 16 audio connections and adding the ability to do multiple conferences at the same time. There’s also a noise reduction feature to reduce cell phone background noise for those that call in from the road. (Nothing worse than only hearing road noise when dialed into an audio conference.) From a security perspective, the MCU is capable of handling 128-bit AES and 56-bit DES encryption. And, it can support features found in other vendor endpoints.

Though Tandberg is mostly known as an endpoint company, it is beginning to expand into a one-stop-shopping center. Its Tandberg Management Suite (TMS) and Scheduler application can support many of the leading endpoints including those from Polycom, Radvision, VTel and Sony.

The videoconferencing race is mainly between two horses, with Polycom having built a solid lead over the rest of the pack the last few years. But Tandberg has solidly established itself has number two and has its sights set on number one.