Corporate videoconferencing gets hot this week

October 22, 2006 By

Tomorrow a big company (not Microsoft) is going to announce a new videoconferencing system. I got a preview last week and it blew me away — you’ll see in my video that it feels like (I’m embargoed from talking about it until tomorrow morning). I’ll have the video up sometime tomorrow.

Microsoft too has a new videoconferencing camera that’s pretty innovative (I got demos of this back when I worked at Microsoft) that’s getting a bit of attention on TechMeme. I want one for our conference room at PodTech.
It’s going to be an interesting week for corporate videoconferencing.

Filed Under: 1
  • http://gandhi.wordpress.com/ Mihir Gandhi
  • http://gandhi.wordpress.com/ Mihir Gandhi
  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    Mihir: the one I saw wasn’t from that company. :-)

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    Mihir: the one I saw wasn’t from that company. :-)

  • Herm

    None of these videoconferencing gadgets are worth a damn really. Videoconferencing solutions continue to be proprietary for the most part. To be a viable alternative to travel, they must standards-based and use technology as ubiquitous as the telephone.

    I’m shocked, SHOCKED, to find that “All you do is connect the RoundTable device to a computer that’s running Office Communications Server 2007 or Live Meeting”…..must use MS software.

  • Herm

    None of these videoconferencing gadgets are worth a damn really. Videoconferencing solutions continue to be proprietary for the most part. To be a viable alternative to travel, they must standards-based and use technology as ubiquitous as the telephone.

    I’m shocked, SHOCKED, to find that “All you do is connect the RoundTable device to a computer that’s running Office Communications Server 2007 or Live Meeting”…..must use MS software.

  • http://www.coursesbywire.com/ Brian Sullivan

    Unfortunately none so far that I see deliver on the promise of ubiquitous, ad hoc, serverless, multiparty conferencing (audio only would be good enough for my liking) with real time application/data sharing.

    Do either of the two you refer to have this capability?

  • http://www.coursesbywire.com Brian Sullivan

    Unfortunately none so far that I see deliver on the promise of ubiquitous, ad hoc, serverless, multiparty conferencing (audio only would be good enough for my liking) with real time application/data sharing.

    Do either of the two you refer to have this capability?

  • http://gandhi.wordpress.com/ Mihir Gandhi

    Interesting.. I am curious now :)
    If it is an extension of iTrip it will definitely be slick :)

  • http://gandhi.wordpress.com/ Mihir Gandhi

    Interesting.. I am curious now :)
    If it is an extension of iTrip it will definitely be slick :)

  • http://gandhi.wordpress.com/ Mihir Gandhi

    I meant iChat, not iTrip.

  • http://gandhi.wordpress.com/ Mihir Gandhi

    I meant iChat, not iTrip.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    Brian: nope. What you’ll see tomorrow doesn’t solve those problems, but comes at it a completely different way.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    Brian: nope. What you’ll see tomorrow doesn’t solve those problems, but comes at it a completely different way.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    Mihir: what’s coming tomorrow is for corporate types. Translation: folks with BIG money. But it IS cool. So, not from Apple either. Sorry. Although a Mac with an iSight is pretty darn good.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    Mihir: what’s coming tomorrow is for corporate types. Translation: folks with BIG money. But it IS cool. So, not from Apple either. Sorry. Although a Mac with an iSight is pretty darn good.

  • John

    My guess would be Cisco, HP or Polycom. A recent WSJ article profiled some of the efforts earlier this year. If it was a small company, I would have guessed SightSpeed

  • John

    My guess would be Cisco, HP or Polycom. A recent WSJ article profiled some of the efforts earlier this year. If it was a small company, I would have guessed SightSpeed

  • http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/ Nathan Weinberg

    Robert, you aren’t talking about Roundtable, which Microsoft already announced, are you? Because I don’t see how anyone can top that. Roundtable isn’t just the coolest corporate videoconferencing tool I’ve ever seen, but can you imagine doing a video blog with it? Just sitting experts around a table and letting the conversation fly. It could turn The Maclaughlin Group on its ear.

    If it’s better than Roundtable, I’d like to see it.

    http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2006/10/22/microsoft-roundtable-becomes-a-reality/

  • http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/ Nathan Weinberg

    Robert, you aren’t talking about Roundtable, which Microsoft already announced, are you? Because I don’t see how anyone can top that. Roundtable isn’t just the coolest corporate videoconferencing tool I’ve ever seen, but can you imagine doing a video blog with it? Just sitting experts around a table and letting the conversation fly. It could turn The Maclaughlin Group on its ear.

    If it’s better than Roundtable, I’d like to see it.

    http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2006/10/22/microsoft-roundtable-becomes-a-reality/

  • http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/ Nathan Weinberg

    Did you update your post and I didn’t notice? I didn’t see that whole second paragraph and the “(not Microsoft)” in the first one. Findory didn’t show the “(not Microsoft)” note either. If you update your post, and people are already commenting, you could do an update, not an edit, because now I look like an idiot who didn’t RTFA.

  • http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/ Nathan Weinberg

    Did you update your post and I didn’t notice? I didn’t see that whole second paragraph and the “(not Microsoft)” in the first one. Findory didn’t show the “(not Microsoft)” note either. If you update your post, and people are already commenting, you could do an update, not an edit, because now I look like an idiot who didn’t RTFA.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    Nathan: I have not edited this post. The (not Microsoft) was always there. Or, I might have edited it within a minute or two of posting it. Even then, though, that’s strange that it didn’t show up.

    Either way, the whole second paragraph is a link to Roundtable, so you should have caught that anyway.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    Nathan: I have not edited this post. The (not Microsoft) was always there. Or, I might have edited it within a minute or two of posting it. Even then, though, that’s strange that it didn’t show up.

    Either way, the whole second paragraph is a link to Roundtable, so you should have caught that anyway.

  • http://www.minequest.com/ Phil Rack

    For the consumer of small business person, I love using SightSpeed for video conferencing. It works across the Windows and Apple platforms and the quality is absolutely great. It doesn’t have application sharing but you can jerry-rig Windows Live Messenger or Persony to do that if you want. Also, it works behind firewalls like ISA.

  • http://www.minequest.com Phil Rack

    For the consumer of small business person, I love using SightSpeed for video conferencing. It works across the Windows and Apple platforms and the quality is absolutely great. It doesn’t have application sharing but you can jerry-rig Windows Live Messenger or Persony to do that if you want. Also, it works behind firewalls like ISA.

  • http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/ Nathan Weinberg

    Oh, well, sorry, I must have just completely misread it. Still, I’d love to hear what you think about doing one of your interviews with the Roundtable camera.

  • http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/ Nathan Weinberg

    Oh, well, sorry, I must have just completely misread it. Still, I’d love to hear what you think about doing one of your interviews with the Roundtable camera.

  • http://www.buyvideoconferencing.com/ Video Conferencing Setup

    Initially the concept of video conferencing was new to me but due to the change in technologies I felt that work and the performance of business can be effectively be increased positively due to the investment I made in more than one telepresence room. However, many telepresence solutions are now standards based, so they are compatible with other desktop.

  • http://www.buyvideoconferencing.com Video Conferencing Setup

    Initially the concept of video conferencing was new to me but due to the change in technologies I felt that work and the performance of business can be effectively be increased positively due to the investment I made in more than one telepresence room. However, many telepresence solutions are now standards based, so they are compatible with other desktop.

  • http://www.thevideoconferencingequipment.com/ Teleconferencing

    The idea which I got from a conference room environment that delivered an experience which is so true to life an executive could use the solution instead of spending time and money traveling to meetings. The investment which I made on time the returns of the company justify the expense. The profits margin has increased tremendously.

  • http://www.thevideoconferencingequipment.com Teleconferencing

    The idea which I got from a conference room environment that delivered an experience which is so true to life an executive could use the solution instead of spending time and money traveling to meetings. The investment which I made on time the returns of the company justify the expense. The profits margin has increased tremendously.