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.

CounterPath, iMeet, ooVoo Advance Mobile Video Conferencing

Judging from the pace of recent announcements, mobile video conferencing may be a hotter topic than SMB video conferencing. In the past week alone, at least three suppliers have come out with new offerings. One is CounterPath, which is adding video conferencing capabilities to the next edition of its Bria soft phone for iPhone. This is the first step in a strategy to extend integrated voice, messaging, presence and video calling to all leading PC and mobile platforms.

Infonetics Report Shows Speed, Complexity of Mobile VoIP Growth

A new report by Infonetics Research shows that sorting through mobile VoIP options won't be simple anytime soon, even as user numbers explode. It starts with the fact that there are two main methods of delivering VoIP to mobile devices. One is over-the-top (OTT), in which the voice calls travel over carrier-provided data networks. The other is via LTE (long-term evolution), a technology that lets carriers themselves deliver voice calls over IP links to the handset. Prominent OTT providers include Skype, fring, Line2, Nimbuzz, Rebtel, Truphone, Viber, Vopium and others. Verizon Wireless will introduce native mobile VoIP over LTE in 2012.

Polycom's ViVu Acquisition Boosts Availability, Flexibility of Video Conferencing

Polycom's acquisition of ViVu, Inc. adds an important tool to the video conferencing vendor's arsenal, by letting it extend video collaboration capabilities to everyone with a PC. Video conferencing has traditionally operated through dedicated endpoints, including hardware such as room system or desktop video phones and client software. ViVu makes software that makes it possible to embed video communication capabilities in Web applications. The move is particularly important because Polycom technology serves as the foundation for a number of prominent commercial video conferencing services. These include 8x8's Virtual Room, BroadSoft's BroadCloud hosted cloud video conferencing platform and Telesphere's VideoConnect, which runs on BroadCloud.

Nefsis Cloud-Based Video Conferencing Adds Multi-Layer Whiteboarding

Cloud-based video conferencing and online meeting provider Nefsis has added multilayer whiteboard capabilities to its set of online collaboration tools . The new capabilities allow multiple participants in a video conferencing to add text, graphics and annotations to a shared whiteboard in real time. Online collaboration tools, which can include document, desktop and even lives streaming media sharing, represent a significant enhancement of basic video conferencing services. A number of factors, however, make such integration technically difficult. It's particularly challenging, for example, when multiple types of endpoints, and particularly hardware endpoints, are involved. The Nefsis service uses Windows-based client software.