Video conferencing’s move to the cloud: what is it and why does it matter?

This year’s buzz phrase across various industries is “the cloud” and for good reason. The cloud brings simplified deployment, endless connectivity and lower price points to businesses and consumers across multiple touch points.

In the Unified Communications (UC) space, the true value of the cloud is finally being realized. Today’s workforce spends just as much time logging hours in meetings rooms, on the road or at home as they do at their desk. A natural solution for connecting these workers is video conferencing, but one of the biggest barriers to adoption has been the backend infrastructures running these solutions. Think of these infrastructures as your video conferencing plumbing. From bridging video calls and firewall traversal to streaming and recording video, these infrastructures run the show behind the scenes but have largely remained “old school big boxes” managed by the IT department. They’re designed for large companies, and can be complex and unnecessarily costly for small businesses, satellite offices and telecommuters to use.

Luckily, things are changing. Less than two weeks ago, Logitech’s LifeSize division announced LifeSize® Connections™, a cloud-based HD video conferencing platform that delivers SMBs immersive, multiparty video communication at enterprise-level quality. Here’s why it matters:

  • Smart economics – the cloud changes the economics of video conferencing deployments from high capital expenditure (CAPEX) investments to small, monthly service bills. LifeSize Connections will cost $30/month on PCs/Macs and $100/month for each meeting room endpoint. This means businesses of all sizes can offer employees nine-way, 720p HD video calls at a price that is drastically lower than the $50,000-to-$100,000 investment some companies make for lesser solutions.
  • Simplified deployment – cloud services require minimal IT intervention – from auto-provisioning to seamless integration between desktops and meeting rooms – creating video conferencing solutions that can easily be managed by an office manager.
  • Improved usability – LifeSize Connections brings firewall traversal and network address translation (NAT) technologies to the cloud, allowing you to integrate teleworkers, branch offices or outside vendors and customers seamlessly into a multiparty video conferencing experience.

This is just the start of a fundamental shift in how enterprises communicate and collaborate and Logitech will continue to push the innovation envelope in this space. Follow me on Twitter at @erickintz for daily industry news, and check out www.logitech.com/uc for the latest on Logitech’s video conferencing solutions.

Author

Senior Vice President and General Manager, Logitech for Business @EricKintz