Technologies that would be the building blocks of a converged
conferencing system of the future
Enterprises
are growing continuously, and expanding to make their presence felt
globally-exposing themselves to a geographically diverse set of competitors.
This requires them to continuously stay connected with multiple locations, which
is a challenging task. It is practically impossible for a professional to be
physically present at all places; it will also mean higher costs and lower
efficiency.
This is where
conferencing is proving to be a boon for businesses today. This entirely new way
of communication over long distances enables enterprises to cut costs, increase
productivity, and save time. Conferencing has given all groups the power of
choice for interactive communication, and offers a positive alternative to
people who are unable to be present physically but want to be productive.
Professionals are no longer bound by the limitations of time, location, or a
traditional office. The implications of conferencing are profound and the
technology is shaping the future of the very nature of how we work.
Initially,
conferencing was largely voice and video. There were separate audio, video, and
data applications and networks, which functioned as unconnected islands of
communication. There was a distinct conferencing industry with identifiable
layers.
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As the conferencing
technology progressed, convergence became the mantra. Voice, data, and video
started converging onto a single platform, and conferencing integration caused a
buzz in the industry with enterprises choosing cost effective ways. Integrated
seamless communication and real time information gathering and processing
systems have become necessary for firms to maintain a competitive edge.
Today, the separate
realms of audio and video conferencing have vanished and a visual medium of
communication has become the order of the day.
Video Conferencing: Towards IP
There is no doubt that we are living in a video world. Video-enabled
communication solutions are steadily gaining popularity, and this is reflected
in the growing market for video conferencing solutions in Asia as well as the
rest of the world. According to
Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific, the video conferencing infrastructure systems
market totaled $56 mn in 2004, with a prospect of reaching $181.1 mn in 2011.
In-Stat/MDR also predicted that the value of global video conferencing end
points would be nearly $875 mn in 2007, and that of video conferencing services
will be $5.5 bn. ”Video conferencing equipment market is at Rs 60 crore, and
other related equipment and services market is Rs 30 crore”, said Anil Jain,
general manager, Marketing, Siemens
The video conferencing technology is now shifting from ISDN to IP. With the rise of IP, packet-based communication solutions began to find their way into the enterprise |
A typical video
conferencing is associated with ISDN room conferencing systems. It was the first
generation technology, which enabled communication between enterprises
throughout the world. But the cost incurred in using and deploying this
technology was very high. Moreover, the users had to gather in a particular room
and data (files, folders etc) could not be transferred. Although having a
definite advantage over physical meetings, it still could not provide businesses
the kind of mobility they desired as it still depended on rooms equipped with
video conferencing equipment, availability of which was rare.
Things have changed.
Video conferencing is today focused on new, enabling technologies that allow us
to visually communicate, person-to-person or group-to-group over any network,
any protocol, and any device.
The underlying
technologies that make visual communications possible have dramatically
improved. Bandwidth potential has multipled exponentially and continues to be
more affordable. The video conferencing technology is now shifting from ISDN to
IP. With the rise of IP, packet- based communication solutions began to find
their way into the enterprise. According to Frost & Sullivan, end-users in
the Asia Pacific region are fast shifting from ISDN to IP- based video
conferencing that comes with better compression features and lesser bandwidth
costs. Currently, more than two-thirds of video conferencing is done though IP
networks. Even the video conferencing equipment market sees IP as a boost in
popularity of video conferencing. According to Sachin Prabhudesai, regional
manager, Projects, Actis Technologies, “With media or the link to video
conferencing switching over to IP, we see a definite growth for the next 4-5
years in India. He adds that a drop in video conferencing equipment prices is
also helping the market grow.
Yugal Sharma, country
manager, Polycom also favors using IP technology for video conferencing, “With
greater availability of IP broadband services, India will be able to take
advantage of this medium that allows greater productivity, increased time for
market for competitive industries, and helps in saving both costs and time that
is lost in travel.” Thus, IP has become the right network at the right time.
Analysts believe that
the revenues for the video conferencing endpoints markets are likely to have a
compounded annual growth rate of 16.1% between 2004 and 2011, and the major
cause for this would be technological advancements and IP deployment.
According to Frost
& Sullivan, after Japan and China, India is set to emerge as the third
largest market in the conferencing arena by end 2011. With migration to IP
technology going full throttle, along with the rise in adoption of collaborative
applications, the Asia Pacific market for video conferencing endpoints is poised
for a healthy growth.
BENEFITS OF IP BASED VIDEO CONFERENCING |
Higher |
The changing need in
the communications market calls for scalable and interoperable solutions that
support packet networks. The growing number of optimized packet platforms
replacing circuit switched platforms is a clear indication that IP networks are
a significant factor in the telephony network market.
As far as the quality
of video/audio over IP networks is concerned, it tends to be better than
ISDN-based connections. The reason for this is that IP networks are able to
offer more bandwidth than ISDN.
According to Sharma,
“The quality and quantity of calls is determined by the processing power of
IP-based networks. Network administrators must plan how many simultaneous
sessions will be required to run across the IP network as well as current data
capacity that would run on the same network. Scalability and performance are
directly impacted by the processing power of the network.
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“The video
conferencing market is moving towards rich media collaboration and video
communication rather than traditional room based video conferencing. New
technologies, intelligent architectures and cheaper clients have resulted in
rich media collaboration moving down the organizational hierarchy; out of the
boardroom and on to the desktop “ says Jain. That is why IP is so appealing.
Media rich IP for voice and visual communication enables service providers and
manufacturers to offer a variety of services and develop IP devices such as
switches, gateways bridges etc in increasing numbers.
The availability of
high-bandwidth networks is continuously expanding to reach all corners of the
globe. This is what makes IP based rich media collaborative communication
application possible. With the promise of evermore-affordable bandwidth, the IP
protocol lends itself to cost effective data collaboration, voice telephony, and
multipoint visual communication.
Web Conferencing: It's the
Future
Small companies are gearing up to go international with the power of the
Internet. This is driving the growth of the web conferencing market. Using
Internet to provide virtual meeting spaces is becoming one of the hottest
marketing trends for businesses across all industry lines. Traditional business
travel and telephone conference-call strategies are quickly being replaced by
web conferencing and web-based seminars.
With the recent rise
in demand around web conferencing technologies, IDC predicts that the
conferencing applications' market will grow to more than $41.1 bn in 2007.
Shailesh Mehta, CEO, Gurukul Online says, “With the availability of broadband,
both wireless and wire line increasing, and prices dropping, the market for web
conferencing is set to explode. Besides, now more companies are offering web
conferencing on ASP basis; quality of features have improved and prices have
become more competitive.”
According to Gartner,
the World Wide Web conferencing and team based collaboration market currently
stands at $680 mn and will reach $1.1 bn by 2008.
Why is web
conferencing picking up pace internationally as well as in India? According to
Kiran Dattar, managing director, WebEx Communications India,“ one of the main
drivers of web conferencing is increased adoption and availability of broadband.
In India the increased adoption of broadband in smaller towns, coupled with the
government taking steps to provide Internet connectivity to these towns, will
definitely pave the way for increased adoption of web based collaborative
applications like web conferencing.”
Mehta is of the view
that “Key drivers of web conferencing are convenience and cost saving factors.
With broadband availability increasing and prices dropping, the web conferencing
market has reached an inflexion point.”
The surge in the BPO
sector is also one of the key factors of increasing demand of web conferencing
in India. According to Sharma, “Ploycom sees the ITES and BPO sector adopting
web and other conferencing in a large way.”
Dattar says “India
inc is riding the outsourcing wave and thereby realizing the need to communicate
with different geographies on a regular basis, at real time, and is looking at
web conferencing and online meetings to improve efficiencies and
productivity.”
Web conferencing is gaining popularity day by day and can safely be termed as the conferencing technology of the future |
Other verticals which
are contributing significantly in making web conferencing popular are BFSI,
healthcare, education, and consulting. According
to Dattar, with technological advancements like presentation sharing,
application sharing and remote control, high performance and reliability etc,
web conferencing today is as easy as logging into your e-mail.
Enterprise usage of
web conferencing is fast shifting from presentation to collaboration. According
to Frost & Sullivan, web conferencing helps in reducing operating costs;
minimizing unnecessary travel; enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of
communication; delivering clear, concise and consistent training; encouraging
real time collaboration between distant and local coworkers; etc.
Mehta says,
“Corporates are looking at saving costs, which is substantial in the case of
web conferencing. With broadband availability increasing and prices dropping,
the web conferencing market has reached an inflexion point.”
Web conferencing
security and quality of service has long been an area of concern for the
enterprise. Over the years, a number of conference management features and
encryption technology has been integrated to combat and minimize enterprise
concern. “Today, conducting a meeting or a seminar through a web conference is
as safe as having one in an enclosed room. With the web conferencing solutions
available today, the security and reliability of sharing critical data over a
web conference is the same as that enjoyed in a closed boardroom or seminar
hall,” says Dattar.
Now we can safely say
that the conferencing software has matured. Web- conferencing vendors have
minimized the security and quality of service concerns by ensuring improved
setup, configuration and user experience. Every conferencing vendor is concerned
with providing a more secure experience for customers.
Although web
conferencing is gaining popularity day by day and can safely be termed as the
conferencing technology of the future, the video conferencing market doesn't
see it as a potential threat. According to Jain, “Web conferencing in its
traditional form would complement video conferencing in its traditional form.
But, increasingly, web and video collaboration are being integrated into the
same clients and are no longer separate islands.”
Prabhudesai says,
“Web conferencing is not a real threat to video conferencing as the quality,
in terms of the frame rate per second, is very poor. But with IP being the
future and with a wider broadband speed available at an affordable rate, the
industry will switch over to web conferencing.”
Conferencing Through IM: Not
Just Text
Instant Messaging is also an integral part of web conferencing and forms the
backbone of communication within an enterprise or a user group. The convenience
of being able to communicate from the desktop has made conferencing a part of
today's workplace culture. IM
combines the real-time advantages of a phone call with the convenience of an
email. The businesses are realizing the advantages of instant communication and
are encouraging the use of IM tools to speed-up and ease communication.
Even the major players
in the Instant Messaging market are realizing this and making efforts
to build-in additional, richer forms of communications. IM might be one
of the hottest new channels of communications to hit the enterprise, but
security still remains a major concern, if not properly regulated. If these
issues are addressed carefully, Instant messaging technologies that are
practically free and provide instantaneous communication, are poised to provide
connectivity in a networked world.
Thus, web conferencing
is moving ahead of the early adopter phase but surely holds a lot of promises.
With enterprises moving towards convergence, web conferencing will soon become
the backbone of the enterprise conferencing infrastructure.
Conferencing On the Move
Today, converged networks are helping to increase efficiency, generate
revenues, and converged communication on mobile is not a distant dream. In
Japan, subscribers to the NIT-DoCoMo cellular service are using the advanced
infrastructure to video telephone their peers, share visual experience and
provide data related information.
Service providers are
offering a wide range of easy-to-use mobile phone services to subscribers
enabling them to make more efficient use of their time and need. Voice calls
form the bulk of their revenues. Stiff
competition among service providers has led to minimized call charges, and they
are looking for new avenues of revenue generation. The voice and conferencing
links between messaging and presence services to the traditional voice world is
a welcome sight and gives ample opportunity to generate voice traffic and
revenues, in addition to the inherent messaging.
The idea behind the voice and conferencing service is that when a group of MIM
or Chat users want to communicate, they should have all possible means of
communication at their disposal, including traditional voice communications.
The operator's
objective to provide video and conferencing over mobile is that they are able to
provide multi-modality, add value to traditional voice services, enable
presence-based communication, and maintain privacy and infrastructure
convergence, which when achieved to the full potential will revolutionize the
mobile communication market.
The implementation of
video and conferencing over mobile provides a number of advantages to the mobile
user. It means location and presence of information and voice interaction. Voice
activities, initiated from a text session (IM, Chat, Dating, Gaming), group
activities: voice, chat and conferencing etc.
Video,
and conferencing over mobile has the potential to provide a symbiotic
environment for the service providers as well as the subscribers. It will enable
the subscriber to conduct voice conversation from any type of handset and also
provide an intuitive path to voice conferencing from other messaging services.
Video, and conferencing over mobile has the potential to provide a symbiotic environment for the service providers as well as the subscribers |
On the other hand, it
will benefit the operator by increasing the voice traffic and revenues, broaden
the messaging services' target market, and leverage voice infrastructure.
Converging
technologies have become a commonplace for business professionals. As people get
busier and workdays move at a faster pace, workers naturally look at
streamlining processes and get more work done in an efficient manner.
The future of
conferencing lies in making it easier to deploy, enhancing its features to help
the entrepreneurs become more mobile and well connected at the same time.
Conferencing will no
longer be a tool to enable ad hoc calls but with limited functionality
or a choice to use one media type or another. It
is fast evolving to become a
value addition to communication networks. It is an extension of the intelligent
network that seamlessly locates, facilitates and enables media-rich conferences.