Digicom Technology News

A new business reality is emerging across all segments of the business spectrum, and it is creating opportunity and challenges that must be considered and planned for today. The new reality is the product of the convergence of mobility, video, and collaboration, driven by three megatrends:

• The consumerization of IT driven by the use of consumer-oriented devices and applications crossing over into the SMB and enterprise markets 
• The increased adoption and usage of videoconferencing across the consumer, SMB, and enterprise markets 
• Technology advances in the underlying foundation of mobile video driven by rapidly growing network broadband capacity and compounded by the growth of video-capable mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets

Mobility has reshaped voice telecommunications and is poised to have the same impact on video communications. The powerful combination of mobility and real-time video communications is further enhanced by the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend in mobility. BYOD is enabling devices and applications designed for consumer usage to impact the way employees of small, medium-sized, and large enterprises access and utilize advanced communication applications, essentially extending the most widely used consumer devices and applications into the enterprise.

In the BYOD scenario, employees want to increase their own productivity; they need no incentive and, in fact, must overcome organizational barriers. Furthermore, they require no training because they have learned how to use these applications at home, and they furnish their own technology in the form of cherished smartphones or tablets. This trend of consumerization brings to bear a number of new concerns about liability, privacy, and security. As a result, enterprise IT stakeholders are rapidly building a strategy for BYOD through the implementation of mobile management and security.

Similar to the rapid movement toward person-to-person communication rather than place-to-place communication, a shift from voice communication to visual communication is occurring as well. The increasing usage of various forms of videoconferencing in the consumer, SMB, and enterprise markets is quickly establishing itself all over the globe. For example, IDC forecasts that approximately 30% of the U.S. population will engage in videoconferencing in 2012, growing to over 45% by 2015.Also, according to IDC's recent enterprise survey, 40.5% of respondents currently use some form of videoconferencing and 70% of respondents either currently use videoconferencing or plan to use videoconferencing in the next year.

The foundation for mobile video collaboration lies in two trends. Firstly, The growth of tablet and smartphone penetration. Secondly, the buildout of 3G and 4G mobile networks and the growing access to WiFi connected to fixed broadband networks in the home, the workplace, and public areas.

In addition to deploying unified communications (UC) technology for enhancing interactions between and among workers for productivity purposes, organizations are now leveraging the technology to enhance key business processes. For example, they are using video not just for face-to-face internal meetings but also for conducting diagnostic procedures in healthcare, distance learning in education, online access to experts in banking and finance, video kiosks in retail operations, and business-to-business commerce among customers, clients, and partners.

When potential users evaluate the benefits of mobile visual communications, the key question is, "Will it make me and my team more productive?" In IDC surveys of thousands of SMB owners and enterprise IT decision makers, "increased productivity" is continually listed among the highest benefits of video collaboration. Increased productivity means video gives the sales team, product team, research team, or engineering team an edge.

Please contact Digicom to see how our video conferencing solutions can help you.

Article courtesy of IDC.