Videoconference Future In IP

<B>Videoconference Future In IP</B>

By Chris Davis

The role videoconferencing will play in future corporate meetings depends largely on how willing corporations are to shift to more advanced networks.

Stephen Von Rump, a former MCI Corp. data marketing head who was named CEO of the Austin, Texas-based videoconferencing manufacturer VTEL Corp. in December, said the future of the beleaguered technology lies in the corporate movement toward Internet, or IP, networks and away from traditional ISDN networks. Such a move would facilitate the incorporation of videoconferencing equipment into the corporate network, instead of necessitating the creation of a whole new network to handle it.

"The reason videoconferencing has not really taken off despite the compelling value for corporate applications is the same that has challenged the industry from the beginning 10 years ago," Von Rump said. "It's the cost of the systems, though they obviously have come down quite a bit, and the ease of use, though that too has been eased over the past few years. And the networks play a large part. Most of these applications require an ISDN network, and this will never take off until we can plug these applications into a standard infrastructure, which is IP."

Von Rump believes the decision to incorporate videoconferencing into a meetings management program is, at minimum, one in which a company's chief information officer needs to be consulted because corporations often need to significantly upgrade their networks to support its capability. But, in a world where IP networks are the corporate standard--which Von Rump thinks is feasible after 2001--employees simply will be able to plug the required technology into the network.

"I can see a lot of people purchasing PC-based or appliance-based products because they know they can plug them in to the IP network, without necessarily requiring approval from the top levels of the organization," Von Rump said. "That's when it will really take off. When corporations establish converged infrastructures it will be as easy to pop in bandwidth-intensive videoconferencing capability as it is to plug your laptop in to a LAN."

Under such a theory, corporations would be able to replace extremely short-term meeting travel with videoconferencing with a minimum of fuss or approvals. But even with greater latitude and capability to use videoconferencing, history has taught Von Rump not to expect widespread reductions in group and meeting travel as a result of the technology.

"I would like to believe that it could be true, but it hasn't been the case," Von Rump said. "What videoconferencing will do is aid the emerging new corporate structure--one that's much less hierarchical and much more distributive, with more ad hoc meetings and corroboration with other organizations. In that decentralized world, visual communications technology can be a compelling value."

That said, the move toward IP networks won't happen overnight, so there still will be a market in the near future for traditional videoconferencing systems. But Von Rump doesn't see corporate interest growing and suspects that any new business for traditional systems for VTEL or its competitors, including PictureTel Corp. and Polycom Inc., will involve taking market share from each other.

"Traditional systems won't go away, but it will be flat to declining in usage with the dramatic growth of IP networks," Von Rump said. "That also implies that the successful videoconferencing provider must have a very strong hybrid strategy.