There was a fascinating, science-based television program on television in the late 1970s. British scientist, historian, and journalist James Burke created a program called “Connections” that explored how one era’s technology led to the next and then the next, and eventually to the modern technologies that we lived with during the ‘70s. For example, his summary episode explained that […]
I was visiting an office a while back and was offered a phone room to hold some meetings. The room was well-equipped with a comfortable chair, adequate lighting, a small table with a Neat Frame to easily join Teams calls, and even a blue accent wall to make it feel a little less sterile. I […]
Is there a “best” videoconferencing software? When would you recommend someone use Google Meet versus Microsoft Teams versus Zoom? The “best” videoconferencing software is the one that meets the needs of your organization and users, and too few AV/IT folks take the time to find out what their users truly need. In today’s environment, all […]
Yes, we suffer from more than just Zoom fatigue. The ProAV industry also suffers from “would-be-Zoom fatigue.” The weariness that comes with hearing about another contender that hopes to knock out remote work incumbents like Zoom and Teams. Yet, Switchboard comes with more spark. Spark Capital, that is. Switchboard raised $13.8 million backed by Spark […]
Vanco International today unveiled an all-in-one video collaboration product, the PulseAudio Collaboration Video Bar (PA-CVB1). The PA-CVB1 has a modern soundbar form factor, a built-in six-ray beamforming microphone and a 4K ePTZ camera embedded in its center. The PA-CVB1’s camera is equipped with smart framing, which automatically adjusts to frame participants; auto-tracking to automatically follow […]
OK … put down the pitchforks. There’s a method here. I have had the unique experience of having a front-row seat regarding videoconferencing (VC) over the last 30 years. As I have watched it evolve, I have seen not just WHAT changed but, more importantly, WHY it changed. At the same time, I have also […]
This is the third installment of my series on getting — and keeping — the job you want by selling your value. The past columns in this series can be found here. I think of interviewing for a job as a similar methodology to meeting with a potential client to get to the next step […]
At the start of January 2020, working from home was a carefully guarded privilege. Some professions — and some job categories — had the chance to stay home and do work on their computers. Some people (mothers in particular) changed their lives to have the ability to work from home. Some employers embraced the idea. […]
Remember way back when, when phone calls didn’t include video? I miss these days. Unbeknownst to my clients — sans the occasional siren or Harley Davidson motorcyclist, there were many, many times where I would jump on a call with them and walk, and walk and walk while strategizing. I loved it. Not only was […]
Zoom just delivered a few new updates for the Zoom Meetings and Zoom Video Webinars application as well as announced new hardware solutions for Zoom Rooms. Adding something called “vanishing pen annotation,”a Zoom user can now highlight text or objects on the shared screen without having to undo or erase highlight annotations. Use the vanishing pen […]
Many years ago, I worked for a facilities-based CLEC selling POTS (plain old telephone services), DSL, T1 (1.5 Mbps), bonded T1 lines (3 Mbps), phone systems and VoIP (voice-over-IP) solutions. This experience helped me to really understand the business criticality of quality-of-service internet bandwidth and continues to help me to this day. After IT/telecom, I […]
As businesses and educational institutions prepare for the return to work, meeting rooms and classrooms will see heavy technology investments to support hybrid work and learning. Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, State of the Global Video Conferencing Devices Market, Forecast to 2025, finds that by 2025, the number of video conferencing devices, including room-based endpoints, […]
Have you seen the movie “Groundhog Day”? You know, the one where Bill Murray is forced to repeat one day over and over? Well, here it is a quarter past Groundhog’s Day 2021, and I don’t think any of us expected that we’d still be conducting our lives — business and otherwise — online. But […]
I formally joined Zignage (CMS software solution company) on Feb. 3, 2020, and attended ISE 2020 in Amsterdam from Feb. 10-12. On March 3, I attended the New York Build 2020 Expo at the Javits Center and continued going into New York City for meetings — March 9 (my office) and March 12 (small vendor […]
I’ve written at length this past year about how COVID has affected, well, everything. The adaptions we’ve all had to make to our changing circumstances have been pervasive. I was just organizing all my paperwork to send to our accountant for my taxes. My total travel/work expenses for 2020 added up to $440. In a […]
Skype, FaceTime and now Zoom. Each of the past several iterations of videoconferencing have a few things in common. First, they became part of the consumer lexicon, becoming verbs, in fact. Second, they became popular because of their use by, and availability to the general consumer. Only Zoom, however, grew at what can be described […]
This month, Nvidia announces an open beta for Omniverse, a 3D simulation and collaboration platform — and Maxine, a cloud-native streaming video AI platform. It’s now a phygital world — and as the physical and digital worlds fuse to simulate reality in real time and with pixel perfect detail, the company that AV should pay […]
THIS IS A PROMOTED POST Times are changing, and today’s hybrid working world — with some people at home and some in the office — means team collaboration is more necessary than ever. We’ve got a great story to share with you today, and we hope you’ll read it in full, but let’s be realistic; […]
There’s no doubt that Microsoft Teams has been playing catch-up with Zoom for months; some would argue years. But, this week, Microsoft upped its game by adding a host of features that even Zoom power-users will love. Here’s a summary look at each one: Together Mode: Together mode re-imagines meeting experiences to help participants feel […]
By Kane McKenna Futuresource Consulting The rate of growth in the office based headset market has been steadily increasing in recent years. A key driver of this has been the rising importance of video conferencing, explored in Futuresource’s 2020 Video Conferencing report. Many end users have been looking to improve their videoconferencing experience, leading to […]
By Chris Evans Futuresource Consulting The challenge for many businesses to facilitate home working at scale has proven to be a major catalyst in making video an everyday business tool. This has been one of the most significant operational and cultural changes businesses have faced in decades and has proven to be a fast-track education […]
I’d never heard the term “double join” until a few months ago on a call with one of our board members, John Case, who is a great resource to talk with if you’re researching the world of video conferencing. John spent a long time at Microsoft building the Office 365 product family and now puts […]
Videoconferencing solutions continue to move into the commercial foreground, with videoconferencing hardware achieving pre-COVID-19 volume and value growth of 28% and 9% respectively in 2019, according to a new report from Futuresource Consulting. The report covers all aspects of videoconferencing hardware; it also combines desk research, sales data from vendors across seven key geographies and […]
By Adam Cox Futuresource Consulting It is not an exaggeration to say that the world as we know it will be forever changed once we emerge from the all-engulfing COVID-19, with one of the major shifts being how we choose to work effectively in the workplace moving forward. Ultimately, collaboration technology is at the center […]
By Adam Cox Futuresource Consulting Populations are adjusting to COVID-19, with social distancing orders having compelled people to find alternatives to face-to-face meetings. As a result, cloud video conferencing solutions have never been more popular. With hundreds of millions of people now working from home, vendors such as Cisco, Lifesize and Microsoft have responded to […]
Less than a week after Facebook Launched Messenger Rooms — a videoconferencing platform designed to take on Zoom and Microsoft Teams — Kaltura, known for its lecture capture and storage platform, is entering the videoconferencing market, too. Kaltura Meetings, according to the company, is a “video communication and collaboration suite of products to take enterprise […]
The video communications provider, Pexip, today announced a record 50% year-on-year growth in contracted annual recurring revenue (ARR) after the first quarter of 2020, further enhancing the recently reported growth of 32% in 2019. Q1 2020 finished with a significant increase in delta annual recurring revenue (DARR) of 9.5MUSD, giving a total contracted annual recurring […]
With everything that is going on around us, we are seeing plenty on the news and about folks having to work remotely. Over the coming weeks and months, we will see quite a bit about how we’re not keeping up and that business continuity is failing. Based on what I am observing first-hand from my […]
Lifesize has released a new set of capabilities designed to help IT administrators remotely support videoconferencing through the Lifesize Admin Console. Available immediately worldwide, Lifesize customers can now leverage real-time reporting, refreshed dashboards and live meeting statistics to monitor network performance, call quality and organization-wide videoconferencing usage. With real-time reporting and live meeting statistics, admins […]
Zoom released a handful of new Zoom Phone features recently including expanded on-net calling and additional contact center integration. And, the Zoom App Marketplace just topped 200 app offerings. Here are some of the highlights from its latest Zoom platform release. Zoom Phone: On-net calling to audio conference phone numbers: If you’re a metered and […]
ClearOne has received Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (“Zoom”) certification for its UNITE professional videoconferencing cameras. The Zoom-certified UNITE 50 4K camera is USB plug-and-play ready with a 120-degree field-of-view, digital zoom and the ability to pair with any microphone/speaker combination. The camera’s ultra-wide-angle field-of-view is ideally suited for visual communication and collaboration in huddle spaces […]
Enplug has added the ability to broadcast Zoom video conferences via Enplug’s digital signage platform. Enplug’s new Zoom App is freely available to Enplug users via the company’s App Market. Enplug’s new Zoom App streamlines the process of broadcasting live events and presentations to multiple screens. From within Enplug’s Zoom App, users create a new […]
