The video conferencing world is changing at breakneck speed. Hold on to your hats peeps……we are in for one screaming fun ride! Whooohooo…
This past week, Vidyo, announced their new “free” (free is in quotes because I see a requirement that you have to promise to have 50 endpoints in three months…guess that leaves out us REALLY SMALL business owners…arrrghhh) video conferencing service, VidyoWay, on the cloud that supports business class video quality.
Very interesting….
The ability to meet anytime, with anyone, from anywhere (using almost any device from room based fancy H.323 / SIP to mobile app driven video conferencing) is definitely happening. Time to rethink corporate video conferencing.
Here is the Press Release Vidyo sent to me a few days ago:
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Vidyo Offers First Free Interconnectivity Service for B2B Video Communications to Accelerate Market Growth
VidyoWay™ Provides Free Virtual MCU for Polycom, Cisco/Tandberg,
LifeSize and Microsoft Lync Endpoints
Hackensack, NJ – JULY 23, 2012 – Vidyo, Inc., the world’s fastest-growing video conferencing company, today announced another revolutionary leap forward to make business-to-business video communications universally available. The VidyoWay™ service is the first free interconnectivity service to support multi-vendor, business quality video conferencing for multi-party or point-to-point meetings. Using a simple, self-service, executive-friendly interface, VidyoWay connects Cisco®, Polycom®, Lifesize®, other H.323 and SIP-based room systems, Microsoft®Lync® clients, mobile devices and telephones.
VidyoWay addresses the need for interconnectivity among legacy and UC business solutions without the high costs and complexities encountered by end users today. The VidyoWay service creates a business community of video conferencing users, regardless of their end-points, through a free, cloud-based meeting place that extends the reach of video conferencing beyond specialized rooms or limitations of user location or technology compatibility. By enabling the utilization of video conferencing beyond the business boundaries and making B2B video conferencing as accessible and easy to use as audio conferencing, VidyoWay will drive rapid market growth through a network effect created byincreased usage that will complement and accelerate VidyoConferecing platform sales. Companies interested in pre-registering for the service are invited to apply on Vidyo’s website.
“Widespread video conferencing adoption has, to date, been inhibited by low-quality user experiences, high costs and manualconnection process,” said Ofer Shapiro, CEO and co-founder at Vidyo. “The business process to achieve interconnectivity is very costly and cumbersome. VidyoWay provides true free connectivity to legacy systems through a free conference room in the sky.”
“Multivendor interoperability is a real pain point in the video conferencing industry. Interconnecting video conferencing systems that businesses have deployed iscertainly possible, but is often both complicated and expensive,” said Brian Riggs, research director at Current Analysis. “A service like VidyoWay should have considerable appeal among companies seeking a straightforward way to make video communication as commonplace as telephone calls, at no cost to the end user. Vidyo continues to dramatically change the economics of B2B video conferencing.”
VidyoWay also removes another interconnectivity barrier, the need for a Global Directory of video endpoints, by creating a community of users who can simply invite participants from their own address book to a secure virtual meeting place. Using a “Click-to-Connect” capability, colleagues or customers can instantly join calls from legacy systems, UC devices or VidyoConferencing solutions. For users who don’t have access to business video communications solutions, VidyoWay provides a free mobile client for tablets and smartphones.
“VidyoWay adds significant value to VidyoConferencing deployments by creating the ’network effect,’ expanding the universe of business-to-business contacts who can connect via a simple-to-use interconnectivity service that supports seamless interoperability with legacy H.323 and SIP, MS Lync and voice only endpoints,” said Shapiro. “At the same time, our resellers and service providers will continue to offer the disruptive full capabilities of our VidyoConferencing system from telepresence throughdesktop to mobile, while allowing their customers to also enjoy free connectivity to the VidyoWay network.”
The Vidyo Difference
The Vidyo communication and collaboration platform is software-based, highly flexible and can be easily customized for individual enterprise and vertical market video conferencing needs. The VidyoRouter™ is based on the company’s patented Adaptive Video Layering architecture and leverages H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC)-based technology. It eliminates the MCU and offers unprecedented error resiliency, low latency and rate matching enabling natural, affordable, high quality video to work over the Internet, LTE, 3G and 4G networks. The Vidyoplatform allows users to quickly leverage the latest hardware innovations and new consumer devices, making it uniquely attractive to partners. Vidyo has been active driving H.264 SVC and SIP videoconferencing interoperability in various standards bodies since 2005.
About Vidyo, Inc.
Vidyo, Inc. pioneered Personal Telepresence enabling natural, HD multi-point videoconferences on tablets and smart phones, PCs and Macs, room systems, gateways that interoperate with H.323 and SIP endpoints, telepresence solutions and affordable cloud-based broadcast solutions. Learn more at www.vidyo.com, on theBlog or follow @vidyo on Twitter.
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The VIDYO logo is a registered trademark of Vidyo, Inc., VIDYO and the trademarks of the VIDYO family of products are trademarks of Vidyo, Inc. and the othertrademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.