Simplifying Video Meetings and Devices
I ended up having a long Twitter exchange over the last few days about video in rooms, and the key point from people working at VTC suppliers seemed to be that "its a super complex topic".
Of course its complex if your main contribution is more complexity. Our industry has been selling this complexity to customers for decades. At exorbitant prices too! The average codec VTC costs thousands of dollars, for hardware which is really plastic wrapped around mostly air and a ~7 year old cheap ARM chipset.
The result of all these VTC purchases over decades is only a small percentage of business rooms (5-10% depending on which analyst you believe) being video enabled, with usage of those complex, expensive VTCs being in the low single digit hours per month across the industry. The average business meeting still starts 10-15 mins late while people fumble around to get room equipment working. No wonder we keep hearing people say "no one uses video!". The industry has completely failed our customers in this space in the past.
The answer can't be just to say "this problem is complex". It has to be to simplify the complexity. That's why so many customers are now moving to cloud meeting services; because these services make video meetings just work! That's also why all the growth in video room systems is in modern, PC-standards based systems. As Wainhouse Research says in this report: https://cp.wainhouse.com/content/service-attached-vc-rooms-mania
"The combination of software-driven endpoints closely coupled with a cloud-hosted meeting service brings with it numerous advantages – the result is that virtually every leading supplier of video conferencing solutions is moving towards some sort of service-attached offering."
These systems leverage PC industry economics, and cost a fraction of traditional codec VTCs, while also being faster and easier to setup, and most importantly much easier to use. Of course systems based on PC-standards can't use cheaper pricing to justify cutting any corners on security, reliability and quality, and that requires investment in engineering and certification, which I'll cover in a future article. However with the right approach, PC-based systems and cloud services will be the key to democratizing video meetings and room systems, because every space and every user deserves a simple and delightful video meeting experience!
At Microsoft we have now upgraded every conference room at our HQ to be a #MicrosoftTeams room, and will upgrade every room worldwide over the next 18-24 months. Its a huge change from when we used to have just 10 super expensive telepresence rooms for executive use only. This rooms upgrade is a key part of a broader cultural transformation, to a more open, collaborative, and inclusive digital culture, where everyone in every meeting can participate equally.
We are going to be talking a lot more about this kind of transformation at #EnterpriseConnect 2019 next week, and our keynote can be seen at http://aka.ms/ec2019
Our goal with #MicrosoftTeams is to help our customers through their own workplace transformations, and to do so with devices which can be used by everyone, in every space. Our industry's answer to the challenges which have hindered video meetings and rooms adoption can't be more complexity. It has to be cloud services and devices which remove complexity and drive user engagement. That is exactly what I love working on. http://aka.ms/teamsdevices
Advisor @ Prisma-IT (Multiple positions including Tagnile)
4yOne small add-on feature for you to take to your R&D - Please create a new, virtual moderator for ”negotiative” meeting format. This should be a simple AI measuring speech time of attendees and be visible all time in a middle of screen. When someone is left behind, a moderator arrow points out whom ever should next comment. When everyone knows it’s an algorithm, there is no complaints about it. Meanwhile it ensurea everyone has equal time from meeting to comment. If you have ”lecture” format selected and you choose the time for questions, meeting time is not extended for listeners too long. All the information is there already, it is just a matter of implementation now. Years ago we had panel discussion with Jani Brander on stage and at that time I allready suggested on-screen-timer. Hope this goes now to correct channel? Thanks and take care.
Data Science leader using Market & Consumer insights to solve product and strategy challenges.
5yIf I could get back the 15 minutes per meeting I’ve spent during my career sitting while we struggle with projection hookups and videoconferencing before the meeting can actually begin, that would be great. My current remote setup works well but the core of the problem seems to be the meeting room a/v.
Head of Alliances and Go-to-market @ Logitech Video Collaboration | Business Development, Go-to-market, Market Solutions
5yI am surprised that there is even a debate about this. The customers decide which direction the industry grows. The incredible growth for video conferencing over last few years is a proof that the customers are approving of the modern approach. For the longest time, the legacy VTC vendors have burdened the customers with artificial complexity and extorted high prices. To add to the damage, the complexity required expensive services for deployment and management. The modern approach based on cloud/SW and standards-based compute and devices greatly reduces cost and complexity without compromising on the UX. In addition, the modern approach provides a consistent user experience across all meeting spaces, which the legacy VTCs could never provide. Obviously, there is still room for improvement on many fronts, but I have no doubt that the ecosystem in the modern approach will collectively address those. I'd argue that there has been more innovation in the ecosystem in last 3 years (and accelerating) than 15+ years of VTC industry. I'd go back to the point about customers - with more and more customers adopting the modern approach, there will be increased investments in the industry to innovate further.
Director of Services (currently not accepting meeting requests)
5yThanks for sharing this. As a customer, we are looking mostly into remote colaboration in a way that the meeting room can be were we are. Having the possibility to lower costs regarding travelling, thru the use of a device present in a room, that allows us to have a many to many meeting, sharing editable documents and make decisions on top of that, is crucial nowadays. For us video is second place but the capability to interact and host a meeting, reaching from a room to a laptop or any other mobile device and interact, that is key! We are now testing HP Slice SRS 2 solution and it's quite impressive. Just haven't figured out how to load documents to a meeting and use them without a computer presenting! 😁 Keep the good work and make available interoperability with other vendor systems. You are nailing it!
CEO
5yAmen brother. Complexity and expensive is no longer going to fly :)