Cisco's Cloud TelePresence Move Complicates SMB Video Conferencing Choices

Cisco's recently introduced cloud TelePresence offering considerably complicates life for small to medium-size businesses (SMBs) shopping for video conferencing solutions. On one hand, it adds an impressive new option to the list of available products. On the other, it increases the number of questions companies must answer before making their purchasing decisions. In short, while the introduction broadens the range of choices for SMBs looking to use video conferencing on a regular basis, it also makes their decision-making process more difficult.

The new offering is a cloud-based video communication service dubbed Callway. It costs $99 per month, or $149 per month for the HD video-capable version. Users can lease end user Cisco TelePresence equipment for additional fees. The service lets users communicate by video with any other TelePresence endpoints, as well as, Cisco claims, "any standards-based endpoint." The service provides both one-to-one video calling and multiparty video conferencing.

Callway's key selling point is of course that it is cloud-based rather than premises-based. This provides a major advantage over traditional video conferencing solutions by eliminating upfront costs. The traditional approach requires companies to buy both premises infrastructure and end-user equipment, at a cost that only enterprises have typically been able to afford. The cloud approach puts makes video conferencing within the reach of SMBs for the first time.

On the other hand, being cloud-based does not by itself make any solution the best one for any given SMB. As the VoIP Evolution report SMB Video Conferencing: Getting Beyond Clouds & Interoperability notes, some premises solutions can compete with cloud offerings on price. At the same time, cloud solutions originally designed as enterprise premises solutions may not fit the needs of SMBs. For one thing, they may be overly formal, structured and focused on reservation-based conferencing. The choice and/or suitability of the endpoints customers can employ may also be an issue. And the number of other individuals a user can hold video calls or conferences with is particularly important, since the value of any communication system depends directly on the size of the reachable user base.

The new Cisco solution gets a lot of it right. Offering both one-to-one and multiparty video communication puts it even with or ahead of most of the competition. Letting users connect to any other Cisco TelePresence users means it represents a fair-sized user base. On the other hand, the claim that users can communicate with anyone using a standards-based video endpoint raises big questions. As the VoIP Evolution report explains, achieving the kind of universal interconnection capability that such statements imply is easier said than done.

In fact, it will require a complex long-term endeavor involving intense collaborative efforts on the part of manufacturers, service providers and standards bodies. Thus while Cisco is not alone in claiming such broad interoperability, in fact no single solution, even from a company as big as Cisco, can make it happen on its own. As a result, SMBs need to ask probing questions about interoperability and connectivity when considering the offerings of both Cisco and its competitors.

They should ask a number of other questions as well. For example, if the solution they are considering allows person-to-person video calls in addition to multiparty video conferences, how smooth is the transition from calling to conferencing? Are the functions entirely separate, or can video calls escalate to conferences with a click on an address book entry? Similarly, if a solution provides integration of video conferencing with online collaboration tools such as screen and desktop sharing, how smooth and user-friendly is the integration?

Obviously, the answers to such questions will vary widely depending on the particulars of each SMB and solution involved. As such, it's clear that deciding to go with a cloud solution is just the beginning of the selection process, not the end. The new offering from Cisco makes it even more so.