Human Productivity Lab, an independent research firm and consultancy, and Brockmann & Company, a consulting firm focused on the user’s experience with communications technologies and its business impact, have published the first comprehensive review of inter-company telepresence and videoconferencing exchanges.

 

“The Inter-Company Telepresence and Video Conferencing Exchange Review” educates chief information officers, executives, managers, telepresence and video conferencing professionals about the opportunities and challenges of connecting with partners for effective visual collaboration, according to officials at the research firms.

 

The review was based on a survey of the top exchange providers and managed service providers that are providing both wholesale and retail exchange services. Leading exchange service providers like AT&T, Cisco, Easynet, Glowpoint, and Verizon Business are studied in the survey.

 

Telepresence and videoconferencing are becoming popular among global Fortune 5000 organizations to connect with partners, vendors, and customers, the agencies said.

 

“The hold-up has been connecting disparate networks while maintaining quality and security,” the report said.

 

“Telepresence (News - Alert) and videoconferencing exchanges are the necessary infrastructural element to do exactly that,” Howard Lichtman, the co-author of the report and president and founder of the Human Productivity Lab, said.

 

The review of the market has revealed that telepresence and videoconferencing is a young, rapidly evolving domain that is challenging video service providers with networking, addressing and security issues galore.

 

“Most inter-company sessions are processed like long distance telephone calls of the first half of the last century – with manual intervention and advanced notice,” Peter Brockmann (News - Alert), co-author of the Exchange Review and president of Brockmann & Company, said.

 

The Exchange Review delivers the first snapshot of where we are and helps to lay the framework to an automated experience for inter-company telepresence and video conferencing, Brockmann said. 

Last December, Human Productivity Lab and Brockmann & Company published the Inter-Company Telepresence and Video Conferencing Handbook. The handbook is available as both a hardcover publication at LuLu.com and a free download here thanks to the financial support from some leading firms in telepresence and videoconferencing, managed services, and internetworking including: BCS Global, BrightCom, Cisco (News - Alert) Systems, IPeak Networks, MASERGY, TC&C Carin and TATA Communications.

Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Rajani's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Amy Tierney