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.