INTEROP - Customers talk up videoconferencing benefits

Videoconferencing can be used to slash business travel -- an important consideration as the economy sours and travel costs soar, customers said at Interop this week.

While several vendors showed off their video-related wares, five customers described how videoconferencing has been used in medical settings, or for collaboration over legal and other sensitive matters, or even to review computer game development between programmers around the globe.

Business videoconferencing is hardly new, but this year's Interop showed that adoption of such technology has advanced to the point where customers are willing to publicly describe important cost savings, mainly due to reduced business travel.

In general, "businesses are more open to using video than before," added Melanie Turek, an analyst at Frost and Sullivan. She said that payback on an investment in videoconferencing hardware and software can be commonly reached in three to six months, adding that a corporation can get added kudos for being sensitive to green initiatives.

In 2007, shipments of videoconferencing endpoints (such as cameras and displays) were US$1.1 billion, up 30 percent from the prior year, while sales of videoconferencing infrastructure were about US$237 million, up 23 percent, Turek said.

A big factor in the increase was the emergence in the past two years of high-definition videoconferencing. HD images are (as consumers familiar with the TV tech might expect) much clearer that those from standard-definition technology, with nine times the number of pixels in a display, analysts said.

At Proctor & Gamble, 40 high-end, high-definition TelePresence systems from Cisco Systems have been in use around the globe for the past eight months, said Laurie Heltsley, director of global business services for the consumer goods maker. P&G retains a managed service from Cisco to run the systems and will not disclose its costs, although Heltsley said the service will more than pay for itself in its first year.

She said there will be ongoing costs in subsequent years, but was including managed services costs and capital costs for the first year in her estimate. TelePresence from Cisco requires, in some forms, high-definition equipment and special rooms, and the equipment can cost more then US$250,000 per room, analysts have said.

Heltsley said that video collaboration has been so successful with employees that P&G is planning down the road to use it for business-to-business interactions. In fact, many customers who use the high-definition tools don't want to revert to using standard definition, and P&G is considering what to do with 200 units of standard definition gear.

The high-definition has been so clear and compelling that some users are even surprised and a little concerned that facial blemishes and wrinkles will show, Heltsley and other customers said. Cisco and other product makers even give customers the option of using a software product that softens faces to reduce the effects of the stark realism.

At Activision Publishing, how a person looks is not a priority, since game developers in various cities around the globe are using videoconferencing to share and critique their game programs with one another over a system from Lifesize Communications in Texas, said Thomas Fenady, director of information technology at Activision. "For our system, I don't want to see the person on the other end, especially some of these game developers," Fenady joked.

Fenady said the videoconferencing has clearly cut down on travel and development time, but did not describe the exact savings. But he said that LifeSize has been affordable, at about US$11,000 for equipment in each of several locations including London and California.

Page Break

Another videoconferencing customer, Adena Health System in Chillicothe, Ohio, uses the technology to aid medical professionals in Columbus, Ohio, making evaluations of newborns over the 70-mile link. As a result of the technology, supported by a Cisco network, doctors can make videoconference diagnoses and share tests and imaging, which has reduced by half the need to transfer tiny patients to Columbus since being implemented in 2006, said Marcus Bost, CIO at Adena.

The videoconferencing was made possible with a US$1 million network refresh and an additional US$100,000 for the videoconferencing-related gear, he said. Eliminating a single trip for a patient cuts out US$40,000 in transfer costs, and relieves stress for the patients and their families, he added.

Bost said that videoconferencing technology in medical settings is becoming so important that he envisions a day in 10 years when a remote doctor over a network link can interview and partly examine a patient via a clinical robot, with the doctor's face displayed on a video display on the robot's head.

Bob Brumm, senior systems programmer for Tampa Electric Co., said that Tandberg videoconferencing products have been installed in 30 locations at US$10,000 to $15,000 per endpoint. The systems grew to 30 locations last year, after only seven in 2006, and is being used primarily for daily and weekly planning conferences to make sure a power plant's operation is optimal.

"This technology takes off," he said. "People like it. It's going to be more important as gas and travel costs grow."

Another customer, Beth Melsky Casting in New York, has been using Polycom high-definition videoconferencing for about a year in assisting television advertising directors find actors in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles without needing to travel. "High-def is very important to us, since directors are looking for subtle differences in talent, from hair color to eyes," said Morgan Fisher, a partner in the business.

"Directors were leery about relying on videoconferencing for auditions until the introduction of HD. It's been a great bump for us," he added.