Biamp Systems announced a new white paper, “Huddle Spaces: Bridging the Gap Between Desktops and Large Conference Rooms.” Written by Frost & Sullivan in collaboration with Biamp and now available for download, the paper explores how organizations can expand the desktop into a conferencing space by pairing high-quality audio and video with traditional desktop services to enable state-of-the-art collaboration in huddle rooms — spaces for up to five people, connecting with their remote colleagues and working together on various projects.

After phasing out traditional high-end audio/video conference rooms and individual office spaces for a more open-office design, many companies have discovered this open concept does not lend itself well to small-group collaboration. At the same time, bandwidth has increased and the cost of software applications and services has decreased significantly, resulting in more employees utilizing desktop applications for day-to-day collaboration with coworkers. To capitalize on employees’ familiarity with desktop applications and to promote small group collaboration, companies are turning to huddle rooms where employees can utilize high-quality audio and video equipment via familiar software, but tucked into smaller spaces throughout an organization’s facility.

The white paper is now available for free download here.