In January, 1999, Intel announced an equity investment in PictureTel, coupled with a new partnership arrangement that would use PictureTel marketing and support channels to distribute and install TeamStations and other Intel products. This alliance, combined with the partners' existing positions in the market, suggests that the Intel TeamStation will join the Polycom ViewStation to comprise the largest installed bases in the "small-group system" market.

"Small-group systems" are designed to run both H.320 and H.323 native protocols. They can operate directly over Basic Rate ISDN , or over enterprise LAN/WAN.

"Desktop videoconferencing" (DVC) is the original term that distinguished H.320 systems packaged to fit in and around PCs. In 1998, Intel introduced a Business Videoconferencing product that added H.323 functionality. By early 1999, the two major desktop products in this space were the Intel ProShare Video System 500 and PictureTel's 550, which is based on Zydacron Corp.'s Z350 integrated videoconferencing board. Both products can run H.320 or H.323 protocols and are bundled with Microsoft Corp.'s NetMeeting for collaboration and PC application sharing. NetMeeting also can be installed as a standalone application on a "multimedia" PC that already has a sound board and low-cost attached camera, and can function as an H.323 terminal.

This new class of desktop terminal is rapidly evolving to exploit the wide range of features in the H.323 architecture. PC-hosted H.323 terminals are already versatile enough to participate in two-way videoconferencing, collaboration, IP telephony, switched circuit telephony and Web browsing, as well as serve as viewing stations for streamed multimedia. To acknowledge this trend, we'll adopt the ITU term, Visual Telephone System (VT), throughout this chapter.