Conferencing MARKET REPORT
“Businesses have high expectations of conferencing technology and expect that video conferencing systems
should ‘always’ deliver high quality video and audio simultaneously.”
Clive Petty, Market Development Manager, KCOM
IS THE HUDDLE ROOM CONCEPT BEEN ONE WHICH HAS DRIVEN THE
CONFERENCING SPACE OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS BUT IS THAT THE
ONLY OPPORTUNITY FOR PARTNERS?
Jeff May at Konftel says, “Absolutely not.”
“It is typical of the explosion we are seeing in the whole collaboration
space, but it gets all of the headlines because it is the fastest growing
sector, predicted by many to quadruple over the next 3 years to be a
$1bn+ market.
It is remarkable for such a big market to grow so much and so fast,
and it is exciting because it applies to all businesses, not just the bigger
ones with dedicated facilities. All companies potentially have smaller
meeting spaces and the on-line apps and HD quality devices now mean
that top quality video meetings are available to every business at
amazingly competitive prices.”
Iain Sinnott, at VanillaIP says, “I like the idea of a meeting that
self transcribes and allows all parties to share a searchable copy.
Conversations are most productive when all parties really focus on
what is being said so removing the distraction of note taking could be
an advantage. The accuracy and simplicity with which you can then
revisit and interrogate the conversation, regardless of any time lapse,
will be invaluable to some professions.”
Nigel Dunn, Managing Director, Jabra EMEA North, says, “In 2020 and
beyond, Intelligent video solutions will also become a useful analytical
tool for companies, with regards to utilising existing meeting rooms
that often aren’t being maximised to full potential. Intelligent video will
take analytics, such as the size of the room, the items in the room, the
number of people using it, how many rooms are being utilised and how
regularly, into consideration, to produce meeting analyses which will
support decisions on the best kind of room or meeting style to optimise
current spaces, as well as the right type of room to book depending on
your specific meeting requirements. This insight will allow companies to
analyse usage for an accurate view of ROI.”
network capacity and video call
facilities such as large screens
and a tracking camera, but this
is not always the case at present.”
Ian Brindle at Nimans believes
the lines between video and
audio-only continue to blur.
“ey work side-by-side now
especially in an applicationbased
situation where there is
very little or no additional cost
of entry. When you look at how
ecient these applications are
from a scheduling point of view
in terms of inviting multiple
people into calls, there’s no
bridging costs because it’s all
done in the cloud. High quality
conferencing is now available at
the click of a button.
Where there is a marked
dierence is with portable and
personal audio-conferencing
>
More and more vendors are
bringing out hardware to take
advantage of these trends, such
as from Jabra, Logitech and
Konftel.
Simon Hughes, Conferencing
Brand Manager at Trust
Distribution, says, “e use of
Apps and our private mobile
behaviour is becoming a key
feature of working life, with
video calls on mobiles becoming
increasingly familiar, especially
with the younger generation,
it is only natural that this way
of communicating will start to
transfer in to the business place.”
With low cost Huddle Room
options becoming more
popular, is there still decent
margins to be made in
conferencing?
Clive Petty at KCOM says the
idea of a ‘huddle room’ is not a
new concept.
“e design and construction
of these rooms has changed
though. ey need to be
ergonomic, practical and easy to
set up. If this is not considered,
then the room might not be used
eectively by the organisation it
has been designed for. For some,
this might mean having more
plug sockets in accessible places;
easy to connect screens and Wi-
Fi; as well as supporting network
bandwidth.”
“e margins are still
there because of the increased
volumes,” says Ian Brindle at
Nimans.
“Years ago, money would be
made from a traditional room
system but that would be one
or two set-ups, now it could
run into hundreds of locations
across multi-sites because it’s
so cost eective, exible and
high performance. Return on
Investment is a ‘no brainer’.”
Margins do not need to be
compromised says Je May at
Konftel.
“As vendors, our challenge is
to oer ever more competitive
and quality solutions whilst
maintaining good margins for
our channel partners. Individual
room solutions may generate less
revenue, but there are more of
them and the margins should
still be good. Resellers have a lot
of choice in the solutions they
oer, they provide a muchneeded
consultancy service to
their customers so need to be
very well informed and equipped
and they will easily identify the
vendors that support them best.”
Iain Sinnott, Sales and
Marketing Director at Vanilla IP
says the key is to look for layers
of margin.
“Mass adoption will always
drive down prices and margin on
individual products, but resellers
with a strong portfolio can win
good wallet share from the whole
business communications and
indeed, general cloud services
space.”
Is Video finally taking place of
audio-only solutions?
Clive Petty at KCOM, says, “If
you compare audio and video
conferencing usage simply by
the amount of time used on an
organisation’s network, audio
generally wins. is is because
not every call or meeting
requires a video call. Shorter,
more casual, day-to-day calls are
mostly done by audio. However,
for more complex meetings,
where human interaction and
a high level of engagement is
required, video is useful and
the preferred option. Typical
sectors that often benet from
video conferencing include the
legal, medical and engineering
professions. It just depends on
the kind of meeting and level of
engagement required to enable
business productivity.
e other point to be made
around video calls is that these
kinds of calls will generally be
the most successful if all parties
have made the investment in
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