Digicom Technology News

A new report from Forrester Research, "The Forrester Wave: Room-Based Videoconferencing, Q3 2012", uses 39 criteria to evaluate the industries solution vendors, assessing video collaboration solutions for every work environment from mobile and desktops to room systems and immersive telepresence along with the services that support them. The following are some of the key findings:


Firms Look to Videoconferencing to make Virtual Meetings better
In a work culture dominated by meetings that participants attend either in person or by phone, more firms recognize the opportunity to use videoconferencing to avoid travel or to at least make virtual meetings more engaging (see Figure 1). Mobile executives want video for better worklife balance, managers want it to see that their direct reports aren’t distracted, and multicultural organizations want it to foster the trust and improved communication that comes with being able to read the body language of remote team members.



Vendors Differentiate on Endpoint Portfolios, Deployment Models and UC Strategies
The videoconferencing market is going through significant change marked by efforts to make the historically cost-prohibitive technology more widely accessible. After a boom period sparked by interest in high-definition quality and epitomized by investments in multiscreen immersive telepresence studios, videoconferencing innovation today is happening on smaller screens like PCs, smartphones, and tablets that workers use in their everyday jobs. In response to this growing interest, vendors not only have to show strategies that account for desktop and mobile applications — they also have to make their traditional dedicated room-based systems easier to deploy at scale.


Leaders have a Complete Portfolio of Offerings
Traditional heavyweights Polycom, Cisco, and LifeSize cover the most bases. Cisco and Polycom in particular have the most options for immersive telepresence, room-based endpoints and desktop hardware units. All three have comprehensive management platforms, recording and streaming solutions, multiple deployment options, leading interoperability, and options to integrate with popular UC platforms. This evaluation of the room-based videoconferencing market is intended to be a starting point only. We encourage readers to view detailed product evaluations and adapt the criteria weightings to fit
their individual needs.


All of the providers in this Forrester Wave report are worthy of your consideration, and which one you select will have more to do with your interest in immersive telepresence compared with more inexpensive systems, your UC strategy, and your deployment model considerations.

If you would like more information on Videoconferencing products, please contact Digicom today.

The global videowall industry is experiencing renewed growth, with the market on track to reach 380,000 unit sales in 2012, equating to year-on-year growth of 60 per cent, according to a new industry report from Futuresource Consulting.

Parmjit Bhangal, market analyst, Futuresource Consulting said: “Since 2009, LED backlight solutions have been integrated into rear projection displays, negating the costs of bulb replacement and maintenance. However, LCD super narrow bezel displays – SNBs – have been the real game-changer, finally offering a viable alternative to rear projection devices and plasma screens, allowing vendors to drive new revenue streams from new markets, most notably retail and public display, as well as defending their positions in video-based verticals.

“These technological advancements have created a huge amount of industry buzz, dominating trade show floors and commanding the interest of industry press, and now we’re seeing all this potential start to convert into real sustainable revenues.

There are four key markets for video walls: control room; retail and public display; corporate and exhibition; and broadcast.

• Control room is a key market for rear projection displays, accounting for more than 85 per cent of global sales last year and also seeing growing demand for SNB. The choice of technology depends upon the sub-vertical, with mission-critical applications – like utilities and command and control – tending to favour rear projection, whereas the more video-based applications of surveillance and traffic management favour SNB.
• Retail and public display are both dominated by SNB and accounted for the majority of SNB sales last year. Digital signage is a key driver for growth in this category as network owners look to create high impact displays to inform, communicate and advertise to customers. Retail and Transport sub-verticals are both key adoption areas.
• Corporate and exhibition verticals both provide growth for rear projection, though SNB is clearly the dominant technology. Reception areas, lobbies, boardrooms, exhibition and equipment rental are all important drivers.
• The broadcast space still demands both rear projection and SNB products. Rear projection is heavily skewed towards the Asia Pacific region, though still has relevance in developed markets.

“Moving forward, we’re going to see strong double digit growth over the next three years, reaching sales of close to one million units in 2015".

If you would like more information on video walls, please contact Digicom today.


Article courtesy of AV Interactive.

After the digital switchover, the 800-MHz band will no longer be used for TV broadcasts. ComReg is clearing the 800-MHzband TV channels (61 to 69) to match spectrum being released in other European countries (European Harmonisation). This will benefit people across Ireland because the spectrum will be able to be used for next generation mobile broadband services. However, this switch further limits a consumer’s ability to use ultra high frequency (UHF) wireless products, as there will be fewer frequencies available. Ultimately, this will reduce the maximum number of wireless products that can coexist in the UHF band at any given time.

These products consist of any device operating between 550 MHz to 606 MHz and 790 MHz to 862 MHz. This change is taking place to make room for both HDTV transmission and mobile broadband services, and will require anyone using any device operating in this space to replace it with an approved alternative.

The UHF band has been under review by most countries around the world, as it is a great option for wireless broadband services, which are in much higher demand than wireless microphones. While the 2012 switchover is the first major change to the UHF band and its availability for wireless microphone usage, it has been made clear that it is not necessarily the last. There is always the chance that more of the band will be sold off in the future, resulting in further limitations in UHF wireless microphone usage.

If you would like more information regarding UHF microphones, please contact Digicom today.

Buyers Laboratory (BLI) is a leading authority and provider of critical intelligence on the imaging industry. They are completely independent in all of their testing processes and subsequent reporting. Recently BLI announced its Summer 2012 “Pick” award winners in ten document imaging software categories. Bestowed twice a year by the editors of BLI, the awards honor the top-performing solutions evaluated in BLI's lab during the previous six months.


Reducing print-related costs, increasing print-job security and recouping print and copy costs where appropriate are the imperatives driving the growth in the print management category. BLI editors have selected PaperCut MF 12 as “Outstanding Print Management Solution” for this Summer 2012 “Pick” season thanks to its robust feature set and affordability.

PaperCut MF facilitates the tracking of (and charging for) print, copy, scan and fax jobs. The solution also includes features such as secure print release and “follow me” printing, as well as cost-saving features such as re-routing of files to lower-cost devices and the ability to enforce duplex printing or restrict output by application type.

“After putting PaperCut MF through its paces, there’s little doubt it’s among the best software platforms in this class on the market,” said BLI Associate Editor Carl Schell. “Not only does the solution have all the necessities for cost accounting, control and recovery needs, it also includes outstanding print management tools that can help organizations better understand their document output and reduce TCO—for a price that’s lower than many other competitive offerings.”

If you would like more information on PaperCut, please contact Digicom today.

A recent survey by Ricoh which stems from an IDC whitepaper shows companies are spending less money on improving document-driven business processes designed to mitigate risk, such as business continuity/risk assessment, business monitoring and controls, and compliance/audit processes, areas that Ricoh recommends companies spend more time understanding and improving. The survey also found driving paper out of processes doesn’t necessarily improve efficiency and companies are too dependent on internal staff to re-engineer critical processes.

“In general, the more deficient the processes are, the less organisations are investing to improve them,” reads the IDC white paper, sponsored by Ricoh. “So even though risk mitigation and other ineffective processes are receiving some investment, they are getting less than other processes and arguably should be receiving a large degree of attention [to minimise impact to the security of the organisation].”

The good news is that well over half of the respondents said improving document processes governing organisational compliance and risk mitigation/management would deliver benefits across business oversight/control, compliance risk, information security risk and business continuity risk. Ricoh’s approach to improving document-driven processes like these includes: definition of the desired state and the creation of a plan that includes critical metrics and key performance indicators; creating a new information infrastructure designed and checked for alignment with business objectives and customer expectations; and a campaign to educate and create awareness with end-users of the new process.

“It’s vitally important that organisations take a holistic approach to fully understand their information infrastructure, where they may need to make improvements, and work with an experienced partner who can help them transform their processes to be more efficient,” said Chas Moloney, director, Ricoh UK and Ireland. “But in the case of processes that are theoretically designed to minimise risk, such as compliance and audit processes or business continuity processes, it is even more vital for companies to continuously monitor, evaluate and invest in improvements. Our research shows this is not occurring in many cases, and we are urging companies to address this growing concern now before they incur even greater risk to their organization.”

A high percentage of business processes (30 to 40 percent) remain paper-driven, the research found, and many processes “jump back and forth” between paper and electronic workflows. Nonetheless, “the least effective processes [in the study] are also the least paper-based. This exposes the myth that simply driving paper out of processes necessarily makes them more efficient. Rather, the health of the process also depends on deeper-level assessment of workflows and attributes of the process itself.”

If you would like to find out how an improvement to document-driven processes can benefit your business, please contact Digicom today.