The Buyers
The traditional buyers are the corporates, especially the IT and ITeS segment. But, now the conferencing market has diversified into different other areas. The most important buyer for conferencing solutions are service providers (Reliance, Bharti, and VSNL), who are into providing videoconferencing services along with the bandwidth. The BFSI segment aggressively invested in conferencing solutions in FY 2006-07. Major buyers were RBI, UCO Bank, Indian Bank, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, SBI, and Syndicate Bank. And cost savings. Another major vertical which pushed up the conferencing market this fiscal, was pharmaceutical companies. Like banks, pharma companies have very wide operations, propelling the demand for conferencing solutions.

Educational institutes are increasingly becoming a major area for solution providers. Increased cost of education, and demand for doorstep service in education have led to a boom in distance learning, resulting in adoption of conferencing solutions in the sector. Telemedicine also saw a lot of interest in it. Shortage of doctors, high specialization needs, high cost of medical care, and remoteness of patients have led to the booming market of telemedicine in developed countries, which is increasingly being outsourced to countries like India. This has resulted in increased demand for conferencing solutions. On the domestic front India is facing a problem in providing medical care to the masses, particularly in far-flung areas. Now, with the increased availability of broadband services even in smaller towns and cities, it has become possible to provide telemedicine services to these remote areas. The government and private hospitals are contemplating the idea of providing these services to offer better and specialized health care facilities to patients.

Defense vertical has also invested in conferencing solutions. Increasingly, service providers are focusing on this vertical. Need for real time communication between command and frontline force has led to this, and we will see increasing interest for future deployment of conferencing solutions.

The latest and expanding buyers are the state governments that are building their SWANs (State Wide Area Network). With increasing interest and pressure on the various state governments to provide transparent and efficient administration, they are aggressively investing in e-Governance.

Bright Future Ahead
Globalization is happening fast, and communication technologies are helping to eradicate geographical boundaries. Video is gaining importance due to cross-cultural engagement between employees and organizations. As convergence brings voice, data, and video onto the same network, new technologies are rewriting the rules of collaboration. In the past, videoconferences, in particular, have been difficult to set up, challenging to use, and frequently unsatisfying in its ability to replicate in-person meetings. To improve this situation, companies are working on new technology that delivers a unique, in-person experience over the converged network. In the coming years, cost of ownership will reduce, maintenance of infrastructure will not be a burden, and the general perception that people had about conferencing as a luxury will slowly be dying. Also, with the wide scale adoption of ICT technologies, we are headed for a bright future. Globally, with the onset of 3G videoconferencing as well as increasing popularity of software-based solutions and interest in enhanced collaborative tools, the markets are providing vast opportunities for growth, as videoconferencing is increasingly offered as part of the product mix by solution providers. While developments in telemedicine, distance learning, and e-Governance are also likely to contribute to the spread of video as part of unified communication solutions, there is strong evidence that point-to-point, standalone videoconferencing solutions are expected to disappear, as the shift to IP accelerates, and vendor partnerships continue to drive the convergence landscape. IP has made it possible to extend the communication privileges to every nook and corner of the world. Potential applications would span across areas like boardroom meetings, corporate conferences, high-end surgeries, operation theaters, education and distance learning, etc. 

In terms of technology innovation, convergence and collaboration technologies will be taking off in the coming years. More and more enterprises will move to IP-based platforms from existing ISDN, and the need for mobility technologies would increase.

However, the industry faces some challenges. Though they are increasingly being eliminated, they need more attention. Taking into account the convergence of IT, media, telecom, and consumer electronics needs, a modern and efficient telecommunications infrastructure should be created. Management of interface support is another challenge. There exists number of standards; separated communications and conferencing technologies reside on different networks and platforms, requiring different management interfaces for support. Standardization is yet another area of concern. Most of the communication and collaboration technologies are proprietary platforms that did not integrate with the existing network infrastructure. It will be important for companies to focus on increasing the overall pie rather than just fighting for the market available.

Nilabh Jha
nilabhj@cybermedia.co.in