On March 23, for example, Black Diamond Video released a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant high-definition videoconferencing system designed for integration within its Integrated Digital Surgical Suite or as a stand-alone videoconferencing system for commercial, business, or military organizations. The Sapphire-QHD1 includes bi-directional HD video and audio conferencing, HD video recording and HD image capture, according to the developer. "HD audio and video conferences can be initiated and accepted with the push of a few buttons from a business conference room," said Ed Priest, founder and CEO of Black Diamond Video, in a statement.
In fact, although some vendors are releasing desktop-based videoconferencing systems, most revenue growth will occur in multipurpose room systems, according to Infonetics. Conference room systems, typically more expensive than single-user setups, are available from many vendors such as Avaya, Cisco-Tandberg, Lifesize and Polycom. Videoconferencing vendors are differentiating their products through price, software, and services such as the cloud. On March 23, Polycom acquired Acordent, a developer of presentation and Web-casting management software for the enterprise, for $50 million. Polycom said it will use Acordent's software to enhance its videoconferencing products.
For its part, cloud-based videoconferencing provider Nefsis on March 24 unveiled real-time routing tables and geo-location to reduce roundtrip latency sometimes associated with videoconferencing and real-time sharing via the Internet. By applying its proximity heuristics, Nefsis allocates resources in real-time, as close to meeting participants as possible, allowing the company to virtualize each conference at the best location, according to Nefsis.
"The distributed nature of cloud computing brings automated load balancing, failover and scalability to a product category--videoconferencing infrastructure--that has historically required high investment for a single point of failure and only a few ports for expansion. In other words, cloud computing is more cost effective and easier to expand, and you get some resiliency to boot," Allen Drennan, Nefsis chief technology officer, in a statement.
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