News & Views on Unified Communications & Collaboration PAGE 1 card or image library. Host controls include the ability to change the meeting layout, manage audio, annotate, and initiate & control breakout rooms. Adobe Connect 9 will be available for hosted, Amazon EC3 managed, and on-premise deployments in Q3. What Andy Thinks: Web events have become a marketing staple. Marketing automation software such as Eloqua and Marketo and lead generation services such as Constant Contact can help automate event registration and create event pages — but the process to set up an event, integrate it with the web conferencing platform, and use the result to drive and harvest leads can be complicated and expensive. Just as Adobe developed features to use Connect as a “poor man’s” LMS early on, they may have repeated the feat by creating a “poor man’s” marketing automation system for events. This is not to say Adobe Connect is alone in the event automation space — but what makes Adobe unique is the ease vs. depth ratio achieved through the use of the industrial strength digital creation and web analysis tools On June 12 Adobe announced Connect 9, a release which significantly moves the offering forward along two dimensions that time well with recent industry trends: self-serve event production and mobility. By in part leveraging the Adobe mother ship’s digital authoring and web analytics technologies, Adobe Connect 9’s self-service webinar capabilities have been expanded to address the full event lifecycle. Enhancements include the ability to quickly generate an event “microsite” complete with landing and registration pages and html email invitations / confirmations / reminders using a library of templates and drag-and-drop elements. Seminar room capacity has been increased from 1,000 to 1,500 attendees. The presenter interface now includes an “Engagement Dashboard” which presents a “real-time” measurement of the amount of interaction from attendees. Adobe Connect 9 measures and displays (using a “Conversion Funnel”) the event- driven lead conversion pipeline from microsite views to qualified leads. Where is the mother ship leverage? Abbreviated versions of two Adobe web-oriented offerings are included: Adobe CQ5, for microsite creation, and Adobe SiteCatalyst, for web analytics — both of which present Adobe channel partners with the potential to up sell users to the full versions of each offering. Adobe believes that a key factor in enabling users to host a meeting or training event from a mobile device is to provide them with the ability to upload, convert, and access visual materials from a server-based content library. In addition to being able to upload PowerPoint, PDF, and Flash files (for conversion on the server — so the application does not have to be on the client device), Adobe Connect 9 now supports HTML5 and SCORM 1.2-compliant content for e-Learning environments. Content can be uploaded from a mobile device’s SD Volume 13 Issue #14 21-June-12 Adobe Connect 9 Ups Ante for Self-Service Events, Mobility Andy Nilssen, [email protected]
card or image library. Host controls include the ability to change the meeting layout, manage audio, annotate, and initiate & control breakout rooms.
Adobe Connect 9 will be available for hosted, Amazon EC3 managed, and on-premise deployments in Q3.
What Andy Thinks: Web events have become a marketing staple. Marketing automation software such as Eloqua and Marketo and lead generation services such as Constant Contact can help automate event registration and create event pages — but the process to set up an event, integrate it with the web conferencing platform, and use the result to drive and harvest leads can be complicated and expensive. Just as Adobe developed features to use Connect as a “poor man’s” LMS early on, they may have repeated the feat by creating a “poor man’s” marketing automation system for events. This is not to say Adobe Connect is alone in the event automation space — but what makes Adobe unique is the ease vs. depth ratio achieved through the use of the industrial strength digital creation and web analysis tools
On June 12 Adobe announced Connect 9, a release which significantly moves the offering forward along two dimensions that time well with recent industry trends: self-serve event production and mobility. By in part leveraging the Adobe mother ship’s digital authoring and web analytics technologies, Adobe Connect 9’s self-service webinar capabilities have been expanded to address the full event lifecycle. Enhancements include the ability to quickly generate an event “microsite” complete with landing and registration pages and html email invitations / confirmations / reminders using a library of templates and drag-and-drop elements. Seminar room capacity has been increased from 1,000 to 1,500 attendees. The presenter interface now includes an “Engagement Dashboard” which presents a “real-time” measurement of the amount of interaction from attendees. Adobe Connect 9 measures and displays (using a “Conversion Funnel”) the event-driven lead conversion pipeline from microsite views to qualified leads. Where is the mother ship leverage? Abbreviated versions of two Adobe web-oriented offerings are included: Adobe CQ5, for microsite creation, and Adobe SiteCatalyst, for web analytics — both of which present Adobe channel partners with the potential to up sell users to the full versions of each offering. Adobe believes that a key factor in enabling users to host a meeting or training event from a mobile device is to provide them with the ability to upload, convert, and access visual materials from a server-based content library. In addition to being able to upload PowerPoint, PDF, and Flash files (for conversion on the server — so the application does not have to be on the client device), Adobe Connect 9 now supports HTML5 and SCORM 1.2-compliant content for e-Learning environments. Content can be uploaded from a mobile device’s SD
Volume 13 Issue #14 21-June-12
Adobe Connect 9 Ups Ante for Self-Service Events, MobilityAndy Nilssen, [email protected]
from the other side of the Adobe house. These are the same tools Adobe-based creative professionals already use. WR also applauds the ability to host meetings and events from a mobile device, where being able to pull and present material from a cloud-based library is key. Adobe has moved ahead of the pack with the ability to upload and process files for presentation from the mobile device itself. If there is something missing from this release, WR would have liked to have seen an increase in videoconferencing quality, which is of a lesser performance than that found in some of its competitors’ offerings. We let Guillame Privat, Director, Adobe Connect, take that on with other topics in his 1:1 interview later in this Bulletin.
More than 34,000 individuals from over 90 countries attended InfoComm in Las Vegas last week, and the conferencing and collaboration faithful were in full force. Unlike many past shows, new product announcements were few and far between, but there were a few notable developments for the truly observant. For some of us, our age is beginning to show. KBZ celebrated its 25th anniversary, with signage and reunion partying to support the message. Not to be outdone, AMX celebrated its 30th anniversary while launching its 7- and 10-inch Modero X Series Touch Panels. And like the dog that didn’t bark, you had to step back and realize what was missing from the show floor this year that was
so prominent just one year ago — Telepresence. None of those impressive multi-screen systems appeared on the show floor, and hardly a banner in the hall screamed telepresence for all to hear. Even more interesting were the changes in business models, as evidenced by the behaviors of some of our traditional suppliers. Teliris now has a complete range of room and personal systems (software based) together with the Lentaris managed services program that supports Teliris and non-Teliris endpoints. And the company is looking for channel partners. This couldn’t be more different from the Teliris of the past. Similarly, AGT has moved into the mobility-enabling world while exiting the hardware reseller, integrator, and managed services world. (See WR Bulletin Vol. 13 Issue #11.) AGT’s technology solves the dreaded firewall problem, something to think about when you’re on a Wi-Fi connection at the coffee shop or visiting a client’s location. Before we get to our top picks, here are some announcements timed to sync to InfoComm: Jenne will now be carrying the entire line of LifeSize Unity Series HD videoconferencing solutions and LifeSize Universal Video Collaboration Platform. And ZTE launched a series of HD videoconferencing products, including the desktop terminal T100, flagship HD terminal T800, cutting edge version HD terminal ZXV10 T700, and enterprise level videoconferencing product M900. (Editor’s note: these are their names, not ours. But our services indeed are available on a consultative basis to help anyone with inferior product branding concepts and names like ‘cutting edge.’)
Andrew’s top 6 from the show floor, in alphabetical order:
Avaya-Radvision: This was the coming out for the 10-day-old combined company. Besides the XT5000, a dual-stream 1080p60 appliance which we’ve covered before, A-R had a neat mobility wall showing video and H.239 data running on Android phones and tablets, iPads, and iPhones. Radvision also demonstrated interoperability between Avaya’s Aura UC platform and Radvision’s SCOPIA videoconferencing products. They showed a conference that included Avaya Flare on the Avaya Desktop Video Device (cleverly nicknamed AVAD), Avaya one-X Communicator, a variety of room systems and desktops and a Microsoft Lync client all connected from numerous remote locations. This was impressive interoperability from the results of an acquisition that closed only a few days before InfoComm. It also showed a commitment to open architectures and industry standards.
WR & UC+C Analyst Appearances & Events
21 June, London Richard Norris, Enabling mobile and immersive collaboration — how it all works together. BT Conferencing & Polycom, 17:30 PM, Polycom UK Ltd.
28 June, Online Alan D. Greenberg, Do Mobile Devices in the Enterprise Spell Disaster or Opportunity for Collaboration? VCI-Group Live, 1-2 PM EDT
10 July, New Orleans Alan D. Greenberg, Blackboard Collaborate Connections Summit 2012
17-18 July 2012 Philadelphia
WR Collaboration Summit, Doubletree by Hilton Hotel
13 September, Chicago Andrew W. Davis, AVI-SPL, Collaboration Expo 2012
9 October, 2012, Boston WR CSP Summit, Hotel Commonwealth
Barco: InfoComm brought the North American introduction of ClickShare, a seamless and wireless way to display laptop screens from multiple participants in a meeting room collaboration session. Barco has taken the user interface to Apple-like simplicity and elegance. You will be able to see ClickShare if you come to our WR Summit in Philadelphia July 17-18. Barco-Vidyo: This was a technology demo, not a product announcement. Think of a 2x2 array of large flat panel monitors, integrated into a single 4K x 2K display with a Barco display controller behind the scenes and Vidyo’s videoconferencing capabilities built in. The result is a multi-modal content + video system, where either piece can take up any portion of the overall pixel real estate.
Casio: Not exactly in the conferencing and collaboration space unless you want to consider how it might be used as a display approach for videoconferencing, Casio was highlighting its projectors that incorporate a hybrid light source that combines laser and LED lighting with DLP technology. The demos included 1) a piece of glass shaped exactly like an open book with a catalog projected onto the glass and the ability for users to swipe across the glass to change pages just as they would do with a regular book, and 2) an upright piece of glass cut to the shape of a full size woman with a projector providing the animation. The result was close to holographic.
ClearOne: Back in the video game after its acquisition of VCON, ClearOne showed its Collaborate Room system. This is a software-based (Intel PC inside) videoconferencing system that supports 1080p60 high profile. Reminded me a bit of the bumblebee story — we know it can’t fly, but it does. The ClearOne solution shows the power available on a general purpose processor and is another milestone on the journey to software solutions.
Vidtel: New from Vidtel is a gateway service that can connect an enterprise MCU to the Vidtel service for interworking with Skype and GoogleTalk. Like Blue Jeans Network, Vidtel can connect industry standard H.323 and SIP users to users on Skype, etc. But the operating model is different. Vidtel is a gateway that enhances your investment in MCUs; Blue Jeans Network is a meet-me video bridging service accessed over the Internet. They both have a place in this world. Vidtel announced several partnerships at the same time, including ZTE and IOCOM.
What Alan Saw: I’m with Andrew on this one: videoconferencing, particularly of the Telepresence garden variety, was taking a breather at InfoComm. The Casio demos were the talk of the show, and though not purpose-built for videoconferencing, presage the day that we’ll be talking to walls / people / ghostly images flickering in the night. Polycom showed (but did not seem to formally announce) its UC Board software now running on touch screen devices. This means customers will be able to use its screen sharing / annotation capabilities during videoconferences without necessarily buying the UC Board hardware necessary for retrofitting whiteboards. I spent most of my time getting updates from streaming and lecture capture vendors, but also really liked what I saw in SMART Technologies’ booth. Showing off its Freestorm suite of whiteboards and enabling collaboration products, SMART also quietly demonstrated some nifty meeting room and classroom tools. This was my first time to see its Mixed Reality Tools, which lets users interact with images that are projected onto the screen by manipulating a “mixed reality cube” that is read by sensors in SMART document cameras. Any object with 3D content (drawn from SMART Notebook Gallery Sampler, SMART Exchange website, or the Google 3D Warehouse) can be manipulated and shared locally and remotely. The possibilities for healthcare, architecture, education,
Barco ClickShare
With projector behind this glass frame cutout, this woman figure becomes
As expected, Cisco put on an excellent show during this year’s Cisco Live end user event and C-Scape analyst summit in San Diego June 10-14. John Chambers’ keynote was kicked off by Merton the Chatroulette Improv Piano Guy, included a live high flying BMX aerial show, and attracted 16,000 attendees — a 40% increase from the previous year. Along with the entertainment, Cisco delivered a cohesive message across its independent talk tracks. Several key themes were highlighted: the value of solution sales, the importance of collaboration, and the critical need for innovation.
On Solutions: Solution sale was a phrase used repeatedly throughout the 2-day C-Scape summit. Cisco is targeting some aggressive financial growth in the near term, and a key part of this strategy entails transforming a ‘box sale’ into a larger solution sale, with a focus on higher-level applications and user experience.
On Collaboration: John Chambers highlighted the importance of collaboration as an area of focus for Cisco’s advanced solution sales. This theme was reinforced in roundtable sessions as the Cisco team outlined its 3-tiered Collaboration delivery model: on premise (CUCM), partner hosted (HCS), and Cisco hosted (WebEx). As expected, video was a hot topic, and Cisco communicated its vision of a converging user experience across its multiple tiered collaboration product line.
On Innovation: John Chambers also noted the urgency of innovation in his Q&A session, explaining “we don’t have 10-15 years to transform our company and brand; we need to do this in 5.” In order to meet the next generation of enterprise demand, Cisco believes it will need to expand beyond its legacy as a hardware-based infrastructure company into being a company delivering a high-quality, software-based user experience. That said, the company expects to build off of its well established infrastructure base, creating a user experience that benefits from innovation in the network.
military, emergency response, and many other markets and applications are tremendous. And this is one of those technologies that needs to be seen in real reality and onscreen and played with for its possibilities to be fully understood. SMART also showed the latest release of Bridgit web conferencing, which remains one of the less well known web conferencing products in the industry by dint of how it is distributed, along with SMART interactive whiteboards and its Meeting Pro and Notebook software suites. Bridgit is coming along with a number of features that were new to us, including a new “Knock” function that allows users to request permission to join ad hoc meetings by “knocking” on a figurative meeting door. The Bridgit iPad app also looks great, enabling users to create or join meetings and interact with content presented on an in-room interactive display. Finally, we saw in Cisco’s booth Cisco Synch, SMART’s interactive whiteboard solution designed for all Cisco C Series and legacy MXP codecs. Synch recalibrates an interactive whiteboard’s x / y coordinates for Telepresence environments.
Meanwhile our colleague Ira will add his two cents in our next issue of the Bulletin.
On Microsoft: as you can expect, there were many questions pitched at the Cisco executive team concerning Microsoft. One pointed question was posed: “Cisco was the disrupter in Voice five years ago, but it looks like Microsoft Lync is the disruptor now. What is your plan?” John Chambers’ direct response: 1) Lync’s early and not ready, and 2) We want to partner more with Microsoft. John noted his desire to partner on multiple occasions, explaining his customers are pressing both Cisco and Microsoft for better interoperability. He went on to explain that, although Cisco is interested in partnering, Microsoft has not been as open to the concept.
What Bill Thinks: “Innovation, transformation, and box-to-solutions” have been communicated as Cisco’s target directions for several years. I remember the shocking statement by John Chambers at a Collaboration Summit a few years back that ‘Cisco is now a software company!’ Cisco has been working this direction over time, and the reality is: it’s very hard. It is going to take time for Cisco to turn the corner and transform into a user experience-oriented company. The message ‘we need to innovate or get left behind’ is yesterday’s news.And there’s the rub: Cisco is
an innovative company. Its communications and collaboration experience is excellent, even innovative. Simplifying the architecture, building off of WebEx as a cloud based communication platform, and aggressively developing Quad and Jabber are all logical efforts — and all are ongoing.
Reinforcing the efforts Cisco has put behind its messaging, Cisco also reported that WebEx subscribers are up 30% year-over-year to 6.7 Million, Quad is seeing strong growth (600K seats), and the HCS funnel was reported at 10 million seats. Adding focus to converging
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John Chambers making a point at Cisco’s C-Scape analyst event
the various elements of its collaboration experience will strengthen this portfolio, and I expect to hear more related messaging from Cisco through the remainder of 2012.
News in Brief• On the subject of Cisco, as we were going to press
the company made a number of announcements related to WebEx at Enterprise 2.0. First and foremost, Cisco has rebranded what was formerly known as Cisco Quad as Cisco WebEx Social. With its latest release, the company is introducing Microsoft Office integration, enhanced email (MS Outlook) integration, enhancements to the WebEx Social iPhone and iPad client, and new browser-based video calling that is compatible with a variety of endpoints, including Cisco TelePresence, IP video phones, and soft clients. WebEx Social is available in new deployment model choices: on-premise (WebEx Social Server), partner hosted (through Logicalis, ACS and Alphawest), and a Cisco-hosted cloud-based solution. We do wonder why this announcement was made at Enterprise 2.0 and not the Cisco Live event Bill covered above.
• This past Monday Blackboard announced the launch of a beta program for Blackboard Collaborate Mobile, a new interactive mobile app for Blackboard Collaborate. The app will let users join a real-time web conference through a Learning Management System (LMS) link, email link, or calendar invite. After the session launches automatically, users will be able to access a range of interactive tools enabling them to view content, communicate through chat and audio, respond to surveys, raise a hand, see the status of other participants, and join breakout rooms. In their PR, they quote the University of Missouri-St. Louis as an example of an organization that has seen “double-digit growth” yearly with the use of a mobile app for their Blackboard Learn LMS; the hope is that an app like Collaborate Mobile will further drive mobile adoption. WR had its first demo of the app just as this issue was going to press, so can’t comment yet, but we expect to see a continued push into mobility on the part of all vendors.
• Onstream Media has signed a master reseller agreement with ACT Conferencing. Colorado-based ACT has committed to selling hundreds of webcasts annually and plans to further expand its provision of Onstream Media’s white-glove technology over time.
• Arkadin and China Unicom announced an agreement whereby Beijing Unicom will offer Arkadin’s core audio and web collaboration solutions to its clients in mainland China. The services will be renamed under Beijing Unicom’s “iConf” brand. ArkadinAnytime audio conferencing will be named “iConf” Audio, ArkadinAnywhere web conferencing will be “iConf” Web and ArkadinEvent for large meetings will be “iConf” Event.
• AGT has announced the first direct-dial B2B mobile video connection to Microsoft Lync clients. This will allow direct dialing from off-net mobile devices to an enterprise Microsoft Lync Client. In other Lync news, Video Guidance has announced it has joined the ranks of those that have integrated with Microsoft Lync, integrating its cloud-based bridging service, VG Connect.
• FedSolutions is now carrying LifeSize HD videoconferencing to market to federal, state, and local government agencies in the U.S., under LifeSize’s GSA Schedule contract.
• omNovia Technologies out of Houston, Texas has announced the introduction of a full white-label version of its omNovia Web Conference platform for qualified resellers worldwide. We know omNovia is targeting global markets, and the new white-label system will enable resellers to offer a platform translated into the language of their choice, including Chinese, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian (aka Farsi).
• Vaddio showcased its new High Definition Wireless Universal Quick-Connect CCU for the ClearVIEW HD-20 PTZ camera at InfoComm 2012. Vaddio also in a separate announcement added support for new Canon, Panasonic, and SONY PTZ cameras.
• Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., Telecommunication Systems Division announced Release 1.2 of its IPedge family of IP business telephone systems for small to medium-sized businesses. New features include the addition of video into Toshiba’s Meeting audio conferencing and Web collaboration application and survivability of the Call Manager Unified Communications application.
• GTS Central Europe (GTS) has launched GTS Videoconference, the results of yet another of Vidyo’s
PAGE 7Volume 13 Issue #14 21-June-12
sales partnerships. Meanwhile ProSpeed.net of Beverly, MA has been added as a channel partner for VCaaS provider Easymeeting.net.
• VBrick Systems announced that the company has been named the Avaya DevConnect New Partner of the Year for 2012. VBrick was awarded the honor at the recent Avaya International User Group (IAUG) conference.
• AVTEQ has launched a new Slimline AV Pedestal, which contains up to 3RU of vertical storage in a new design meant to save space for AV components.
• Compass Business Solutions has launched online end user training for Cisco Telepresence products as well as sales training and video fundamentals training for Telepresence in general.
• Voice and video over IP engines provider SPIRIT DSP announced the next version of its multipoint videoconferencing software for telecom operators, hosted service providers and enterprises, VideoMost.com 2.0. VideoMost is designed to be an HD quality, massively multipoint, web-based videoconferencing software-only product, enabling service providers and enterprises to deliver a self-branded videoconferencing service from the cloud or with on-premise installation.
• Addressing greater consumer video calling competition from Google Hangouts, Facebook is testing adding a video “call” button to profiles to further drive video usage. The goal is to increase awareness that it offers video chat via Skype.
People & Places• Internet2, Greg Bell, Director Scientific Networking
Division and Head of U.S. Department of Energy ESnet.
• MediaPlus Distribution, LLC, Daniel P. Marchetto, President and CEO, and David Petricig, EVP Sales & Marketing
• NeoWave Distribution, Heather Bleasdale, Vidyo Business Development Manager
Register now for free WR Collaborate web seminar: Telepresence is Dead, Long Live Telepresence.When: June 26th – 10am ESTTelepresence is Dead. Long live Telepresence!
2012 brought volatility not only to the financial market but also to the telepresence (videoconferencing) market. Extreme opinions emerged. Prediction for high market growth collided with disappointing first quarter results. Some even declared telepresence dead and predicted gloomy future for incumbents Cisco and Polycom. Is the sky really falling? Or is there a fundamental but natural shift in the videoconferencing market from high-end room systems to more accessible personal video?
Presenters: Ira Weinstein, Senior Analyst and Partner & Andrew W. Davis, Senior Partner
Just a short hop skip and jump from Washington DC and Virginia, Baltimore, sunny New Jersey and the New York area, our Philadelphia Collaboration Summit
continues to add speakers and panels. Added since our last update are Mike LaHaye, Director of Technical Services for Internet2, Michael Obiedzinski, VP Network Technology at The Depository Trust Company, and Peter Stewart, SVP Collaboration Technology Services, PGi.
And we’re not done yet: stay tuned as we wrap up the planning and move on to the event. This promises to be a full agenda that will cover every major aspect of unified communications and collaboration technologies, from pharma and healthcare applications to streaming and UC, from mobility and web conferencing to video and B2B. It will all be there for you at the Philadelphia Doubletree Center City on July 17-18.
17-18 JULY 2012
You Have One Month in Which to Make Your WR Collaboration
Summit Travel Plans WAINHOUSE RESEARCH
COLLABORATIONSUMMIT 2012Philadelphia
G O L D S P O N S O R S S I L V E R S P O N S O R
Enterprise IP Communications: The State of the State
Andrew Davis, Senior Partner,
Wainhouse Research
Head to Head: Key Criteria for Collaboration-Enabling You
Network
Mike LaHaye, Director of Technical Services, Internet2
UC Integration in the Enterprise: The top 5
Opportunities for Success
Bill Haskins, Senior Analyst,
Wainhouse Research
Integrating across the Visual Communications spectrum:
changing evidence based medical benefits
William Moore, EVP & CTO, CareCore National
Do mobile devices in the Enterprise spell disaster or
opportunity for collaboration?
Alan Greenberg, Senior Analyst & Partner,
Wainhouse Research
Driving Business Transformation with Conferencing and Collaboration Solutions
Squeezing Value from Enterprise Streaming
Steve Vonder Haar, Senior Analyst,
Wainhouse Research
From Meeting at-a-Distance to Working from Anywhere
Mayo Clinic’s Video Challenge: 200 Million Patients by 2020!
1:1 with Adobe – Guillaume Privat, Director, Adobe ConnectAlan D. Greenberg and Andy Nilssen
WR: This is our first interview with Adobe for the WR Bulletin. We think we never got around to doing one because you
were always quietly marketing away like the engine that could…steady, but not making a lot of noise and
perhaps doing a lot more targeted marketing. Yet over time you’ve grown to be a top-tier player in web conferencing. Before we get into announcement specifics, how would you best describe how you got here?
GP: The product started as an on-demand e-Learning
Telemedicine is Transforming the Delivery of Healthcare &
Education
Dr Ed Brown, CEO,
Ontario Telemedicine Network
Driving Business Transformation with Process Integrated
Collaboration Technology
Peter Stewart, SVP, Collaboration Technology
Services, PGi
From iPads to Immersive: Service Strategy for today’s collaboration environment
David Phillips, President,
Yorktel
Video Collaboration: Out of the AV World, Into the Real World,
and onto the Cloud
David Danto, Principal Consultant, AV, Multimedia, UC & Video,
Dimension Data
Mobility’s Impact on B2B Vidoeconferencing
Mike Valletutti, Founder & CEO, AGT
Attend, rub elbows, schmooze, and learn. Be sure to keep up with the latest developments at
www.wainhouse.com/philly12.
For more information, contact the Event Director, Richard Norris, or for
sponsorship opportunities (very few remaining), please contact our sales team.
And More!
Lessons Learned for Effective Deployment of Immersion Video
solution. Very quickly we saw the need to develop live virtual classrooms. The user experience we delivered was and still is unique. The persistency of the meeting room completely changed from the traditional scheduled web conference. Many customers saw that and started using Adobe Connect not only for e-Learning but also for collaboration or webinars. Since then, we have been working with all our customers to continue to innovate and build great collaboration, e-Learning and webinar experiences. That is how Adobe became one of the major players in the web conferencing space.
WR: The event enhancements in Adobe Connect 9 are well timed with the exit of Microsoft Live Meeting from the market. Did you detect a void?
GP: Yes. Most of our competitors are focused on the collaboration side of the web conferencing market and have been ignoring the e-Learning and webinar spaces over their last couple of releases. Yet these more advanced use cases represent the majority of web conferencing needs. Adobe provides unique, industry leading solutions for these markets. For example the most widely used e-Learning authoring tools are Adobe Captivate and Adobe Presenter. Additionally, many Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) rely on Adobe Digital Marketing Suite to track the ROI of all their digital marketing activities. With Adobe Connect 9, we have tied all of these Adobe solutions together to provide out-of-the-box solutions for e-Learning and Webinars.
WR: Adobe Connect 9’s ability to host meetings and drive presentations from a mobile device seems ahead of its time – only a few other vendors in the collaboration space are offering those sorts of capabilities thus far. Did you get feedback from users that they need this or are you anticipating demand?
GP: We are seeing more and more customers deploying tablets to their employees, with the expectation that these devices are becoming their primary device. We believe this creates a unique opportunity for Adobe Connect. Many of our competitors rely on screen sharing for collaboration. Yet you cannot share the screen of a tablet today. Neither iOS nor Android provide APIs to capture the screen buffer. The alternative is to upload documents. However, most vendors run a client-side conversion of the document that requires Microsoft PowerPoint (for example) to be installed on the machine. Again this client-side conversion model does not work on devices. With Adobe Connect, all the rendering is done in
the server, so any document uploaded will be converted in the cloud. Because our meeting rooms are persistent, we also keep the history of all the documents you have uploaded and you can retrieve them from any device. We believe these capabilities are unique to the industry.
WR: Adobe Connect 9’s “Engagement Dashboard” - and the ability to plot interactivity against the event timeline — are great features for identifying weak areas of a presentation areas and tweaking it. We’ve seen the ability to plot student questions against a class timeline in lecture capture solutions. Given Adobe’s presence in educational markets — were educational customers asking for this feature? Are you detecting some overlap with lecture capture solutions?
GP: When you are presenting online, whether it is a webinar or a virtual classroom, one of the biggest challenges is that you have no visual feedback on your audience engagement. The engagement dashboard is our answer to this challenge. We know some educational institutions are using Adobe Connect for lecture capture, but our core focus is on the delivery of the lectures online and enabling the presenter/teacher to provide the richest and most engaging experience possible.
WR: Adobe Connect 9 includes no enhancements to its video capabilities - yet some of your close competitors are flaunting HD video and saying web conferencing based videoconferencing is going to “take out” the traditional videoconferencing players. Are you concerned that Connect appears behind in videoconferencing?
GP: We actually did improve our video capabilities back in our Adobe Connect 8 release. We have received great feedback on the improvements made. We did release some enhancement to the Adobe Connect 8 experience as well, like active speaker highlights. We will continue to innovate on video as we believe that there is an opportunity to make video collaboration easier in the enterprise.
WR: Adobe announced that all corporate sales will now be through indirect channels. What brought on this change? Your success with some portions of your VAR channel is unique to you as a web conferencing supplier.
GP: Traditionally, in the commercial sector, our network of Value Added Reseller has been our main go to market channel. Over the last two years, we also have seen growing interest from Conferencing Service Providers to
PAGE 11Volume 13 Issue #14 21-June-12
New Studies from Wainhouse ResearchFor information on WR studies and subscriptions, contact [email protected]
4Distance Education & e-Learning
Tegrity Company ProfileSince its acquisition by McGraw-Hill in fall 2010, cloud-based lecture capture provider Tegrity has been quiet on the development front but active in transforming its sales strategy. Now that it has gained some stability from being part of a larger unit, what product and sales channel issues does Tegrity need to address to remain competitive?
SMART Technologies Company ProfileSMART Technologies currently sells 80% overall into education and 20% into corporate / governmental sales. This note profiles SMART’s extensive product line and describes its opportunities and challenges going forward.
4Audio Conferencing
Market Forecast – 2012 Worldwide Audio Conferencing Service Market Size & 5-Year ForecastFocuses on services and market trends related to PSTN and IP-based audio conferencing solutions worldwide. Provides market sizing and five-year fore-casts for hosted audio conferencing services market. Forecasts include minutes, average selling price, and revenues.
SpotCheck – 2012 Q1 CSP SpotCheckDetails quarterly trends of volume and revenue in top markets for audio and web conferencing services
Market Forecast – 2012 Asia Pacific Audio Conferencing Service Market Size & 5-Year ForecastFocuses on services and market trends related to PSTN and IP-based audio conferencing solutions in seven Asia Pacific markets. Provides market sizing and five-year forecasts for hosted audio conferencing services market. Forecasts include minutes, average selling price, and revenues.
Market Opportunities – 2012 North American Audio and Web Conferencing Services Market OpportunityThe objective of this study is to size the addressable market in the US and Canada for audio bridging minutes and revenue as well as for revenue for web conferencing services. The addressable market potential is compared to the forecast market probability for 2012.
add us to their portfolio, as WebEx competes with them on the audio conferencing business and Microsoft is retiring Live Meeting. We have decided to focus our effort on these two indirect channels, which have the right expertise to sell collaboration or e-Learning services and can provide our customers with more value than Adobe alone could.
WR: Adobe had layoffs last year and there appeared to be some priorities wrangling, with some thinking that Adobe Connect might be the odd man out. You cleared up the situation on your blog by stating Adobe Connect remains a priority. Can you clarify the long term strategic fit for Adobe Connect within Adobe?
GP: Back in November, Adobe announced that it had identified two strategic initiatives, Digital Media and Digital Marketing to drive its next level of growth. Adobe also announced that it remained committed to Adobe Connect. Our focus on Digital Marketing Events (webinars) in Adobe Connect 9 is an example of how we are aligning Adobe Connect to support our corporate objectives.
WR: As part of the same focusing effort last year, did your marketing strategy shift?
GP: We have focused our marketing strategy towards offering solutions with clear ROI to our customers: how do you optimize your webinar spend? How can you deploy e-Learning program faster from start to finish? How can you securely allow employees to collaborate with a bring-your-own-device policy? We are focusing on key business problems that we know Adobe Connect can uniquely solve and changing the conversation from a feature/function discussion to a business result discussion.
WR: Now that Adobe Connect 9 is announced and will go live shortly, what seems to have resonated most with users in the announcement?
GP: I was in Washington DC for our launch event. Customers at the event were really excited about the new webinar features. One of them told us it takes 3 hours per webinar to create a rich event microsite. Adobe Connect 9 is going to reduce that to minutes. Our new mobile app was also a big hit. Most of the people we showed it to figured that they will be able to travel lighter with just a tablet thanks to our new app.
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4Streaming
Vendor Profile – TalkPointTalkPoint, a long-time provider of Webcast event services, is expanding efforts to sell hosted solutions that companies can use to provision their own online events. The product line expansion positions TalkPoint as a more viable technology partner for other organizations looking to establish their own presence in the webcast services field.
Vendor Profile – KalturaKaltura positions its platform as the centerpiece of an “open-source community” for online video. While the company likely will fall short in its efforts to mimic the success of open-source stalwarts addressing other technology sectors, such as RedHat, Kaltura’s approach to the market still positions it as a nimble competitor in the fast-evolving enterprise streaming sector.
4Group Videoconferencing
SpotCheck – Videoconferencing Endpoints & Infrastructure Q1-2012Worldwide and regional unit sales, revenues, and market shares for videoconferencing endpoints and infrastructure technologies, with breakdowns by type of product (multi-codec, single-codec, executive or video MCU and other video infrastructure)
Research Note – Video Architectures: Disruption AheadScalable video coding and simulcasting are two video technologies threatening to disrupt the incumbents while at the same time taking videoconferencing truly to the cloud.
Comparison Matrix – Videoconferencing Managed Service ProvidersComparisons of almost 60 regional and global providers of videoconferencing managed services, including ACT Conferencing, AGT, Arkadin, Asnet Technologies, AT&T, Audability, Avaya, AVI-SPL, AVM, BCS Global, BrightCom, Broadreach, BT, and many others.
4Unified Communications
Market Forecast – 2012 European UCaaS Market ForecastProvides a description of the current state of the European market, assesses current trends, identifies risks and opportunities, and provides assistance on market approach, services and prices. Current market data and analysis and forecast information are included in this study.
Provider Reviews – 2012 European UCaaS Vendor Reviews Review & analysis of 13 UCaaS Vendors operating in Western Europe -- A critical review and assessment of top UC providers operating in Europe. Includes a summary of UC features, company background, UC product description, and analysis of each provider’s approach.
4Personal and Web-Based Conferencing
Market Forecast – 2012 Worldwide Web Conferencing Service Market Size & 5-Year ForecastFocuses on the services that are marketed to conduct personal on-line conferencing and collaboration worldwide. Provides market sizing and five-year forecasts for hosted web conferencing. Additionally, provides market ranking by provider.
Vendor Profile – AdobeDetailed information, insight, and analysis on Adobe and its personal & web-based related offerings (includes Connect 9).
Market Forecast – 2012 Asia Pacific Web Conferencing Service Market Size & 5-Year ForecastFocuses on the services that are marketed to conduct personal on-line conferencing and collaboration in seven Asia Pacific markets. Provides market siz-ing and five-year forecasts for hosted web conferencing. Additionally, provides market ranking by provider.
Market Forecast – 2012 North American Web Conferencing Service Market Size & 5-Year ForecastFocuses on the services that are marketed to conduct personal on-line conferencing and collaboration in the US and Canadian markets. Provides market sizing and five-year forecasts for hosted web conferencing. Additionally, provides market ranking by provider.
