Coming to a lounge room near you - videoconferencing

Stuart Corner
Monday, 04 October 2010 12:13

Opinion and Analysis

It's been the stated aim of video gear maker LifeSize (now part of Logitech) since its formation to make high def videoconferencing affordable for even small businesses, and there are now reports that it, along with industry giants Cisco and Microsoft are about to announce products for the consumer market.

Citing un-named sources US web site All Things Digital last week reported that Cisco would introduce this week, in the US, an inexpensive home telepresence product for personal use, possibly in conjunction with either Comcast or Verizon. Subsidised prices from $US200-$US500 were suggested.

According to ATD: "The big selling point: the high-definition quality is supposed to be very good. Cisco will use this selling point to contrast it to what will be its big competitor: Internet telephony and video-calling giant Skype."

This report was collaborated, or possibly copied, by the Financial Times which reported on 3 October that "Couch-to-couch video calls are being introduced by Cisco and Logitech as the telepresence systems of the corporate world become affordable for mainstream consumers."

The FT said that these two "will not be alone in introducing family video calling to the living room this [northern] autumn." It cited "Skype's calling service [which] is already available on several models of high-definition TVs sold by Panasonic and Samsung," and noted that: "In November, video calling will be offered by Microsoft with the launch of its Kinect motion controller for the Xbox 360 games console. The device features a camera and an array of microphones."

Just because Skype video is available on HD TVs does not make it HD. Cisco, of course, has been offering sub $US200 HD video camcorders ever since it bought Flip in March 2009. In June this year it elevated Flip into the business market and integrated it into its portfolio of collaboration offerings through the launch of a new collaboration platform, Cisco Quad. So offering videoconferencing at the low end of the market would be a logical progression.

Logitech/LifeSize has already flagged such plans, giving a time frame that corroborates the FT's report. Logitech bought LifeSize at the end of 2009 and in June this year Simon Claringbold, LifeSize VP for Asia Pacific, told iTWire: "Our objective as a company is 'video to everybody' so we want to drive video into the integrated home entertainment market with embedded solutions'¦Logitech is developing software that will integrate with LifeSize products that will run on a PC and work with video cameras'¦We are still developing that functionality. We are probably six to eight months away from bringing that to market."

Meanwhile other commentators have speculated that Cisco's offering will be unveiled at a press conference scheduled for 6 October in San Francisco...