It's All About Integration: Enterprise Year in Review

The efforts to bridge the worlds of video conferencing and webcasting make intuitive sense, given the market pressures now facing traditional video conferencing platforms. The emerging "telepresence" sector, in which high-definition cameras and monitors are employed to provide enhanced meeting environments, are beginning to supplant traditional video conferencing systems as the preferred high-end solution for enabling multimedia communications for top executives.

While it may be tempting for some to think of traditional video conferencing as a multimedia dinosaur, it’s more realistic to view it as a market sector that will evolve to survive. Videoconferencing systems are uniquely positioned to emerge as the cornerstone of business multimedia content creation—regardless of whether the events ultimately are distributed via proprietary networks or standard web connections.

By infusing the ability to convert video conferencing content into formats suitable for online distribution, video conferencing systems emerge as more versatile tools for creating and sharing multimedia-enriched business content. It’s a role that is perfectly suited to how companies already are creating online video today.

Executives at 68% of the companies producing online multimedia content that were surveyed in the first quarter of 2007 view the "conference room" as the primary site for creating online business communications events. In essence, the conference room—where videoconferencing equipment remains king—is viewed as the business broadcast studio of choice by corporate executives. Less than one-third of online multimedia users surveyed say content is developed primarily in theaters, in studios, or at employees’ desktops.

In general, the more active an organization is in using video conferencing, the more likely they are to spend on online multimedia capabilities, as well. Fundamentally, corporate customers do not view "video conferencing" and "online multimedia" as an either/or proposition. For organizations with an inclination to communicate on a video basis, significant interest exists in using both videoconferencing and online multimedia.

Of the organizations that deploy 50 or more videoconference events, 57% already are spending more than $100,000 per year on online multimedia capabilities, according to the IMS survey. Another 18% from this group of high-frequency video conferencing users are investing between $50,000 and $99,000 annually in online multimedia technologies.

A Holistic Approach
The growing intersection of webconferencing and videoconferencing technologies illustrates the increasingly important role that online multimedia is playing in the development of integrated communications strategies for businesses, says Accordent’s Newman.

"For the first time, organizations are starting to think about online communications in a way that is holistic," Newman says. "Online multimedia is no longer a pursuit of curiosity. It’s a technology used to help address business objectives."

At some firms, online multimedia technology is being deployed on a frequent basis. Overall, two-thirds of IMS survey respondents report that their company has implemented online multimedia technology. One-quarter of overall respondents report integration of online audio and video into presentations at least once a week.

As companies put online multimedia to work, their first thoughts still turn to using the technology to streamline internal communications. Among companies that have deployed online audio and video technology, the two most frequently deployed applications integrating multimedia are executive presentations and employee training. Sixty-five percent of all companies deploying online multimedia have used the technology to deliver executive presentations online; 64% have deployed the technology for employee training.