LifeSize, a division of Logitech, has rolled out its video conferencing solution, LifeSize UVC Multipoint, to the South African market.
The company says the solution will be distributed via its channel partner, Imago, and believes the offering will go head-to-head with solutions provided by traditional vendors - Cisco, Huawei and Polycom - which have had a stranglehold on the market.
According to a report by Forrester this month, Cisco, Huawei, LifeSize, Polycom, Radvision, Teliris, and Vidyo are the respective leaders in the global video conferencing and collaboration market. The report positions vendors according to their ability to deliver a complete portfolio of video conferencing solutions as well as their strategies in the face of several key trends.
According to Forrester, the video conferencing market is going through significant change, marked by efforts to make the historically cost-prohibitive technology more widely accessible.
Though it has been a late entrant into the market, LifeSize notes that the traditional vendors are finding the going tough in regard to introducing new offerings to the market.
“LifeSize came late into the market; so we had to do better than what the competition was already offering,” said Andreas Wienold, LifeSize VP for EMEA, in an interview with ITWeb yesterday. He also revealed that his company was the first to introduce high-definition video conferencing tools before the competitors followed suit.
Another advantage of LifeSize in comparison to competition, said Wienold, is that his company has video conferencing as its core business, while others focus on a variety of solutions.
“With LifeSize UVC Multipoint, video conferencing can be conducted on devices like PCs, smartphones and tablets that workers use in their everyday jobs, thanks to the BYOD [bring your own device] concept,” he added.
Wienold also revealed that LifeSize makes bridging flexible and reliable to support scheduled video calls with dozens of participants using on-demand mobile video calling.
“One of the driving forces behind this new offering is the evolution of the modern workplace - with more remote workers, fewer physical office spaces and more flexible hours.”
Ian Vickerage, MD of Imago, revealed that the vision behind the LifeSize UVC platform is to change the way businesses deploy video infrastructure by consolidating multiple applications on a single, virtualised interface.
He pointed out that this new offering addresses the needs of the massive BYOD movement, where the power driving new technologies has shifted from the corporation to employees themselves.
According to Vickerage, bandwidth constraints are limiting the use of video conferencing tools in the South African market, especially among small and medium-sized enterprises.
However, he noted that there are several benefits that are realised from deploying video conferencing technologies in SA. “Video conferencing helps businesses through reduced travel, which saves time and costs, and reduces carbon emissions.
“Considering that SA is also set to introduce e-tolls on its roads, video conferencing can also be a solution to consider,” said Vickerage.
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