Does it make sense to invest in HD video conferencing systems?

Do telepresence solutions offer the value to justify their cost?

To answer this question you have to look at some key trends over the past few years. Video conferencing has been around for 30 years. In the past 20 years, the quality has become acceptable and video conferencing has become a useful business tool for a very small number of large companies. But, deployment has never really crossed the chasm and gone mainstream. This is due to a number of factors.

The continual evolution of standards, formats and data networks have been a challenge for most companies to keep up with.

Once you start making intra-company video calls, the chances of hitting an incompatible network or incompatible equipment rises fast, resulting in major reliability issues and disappointed users. I see so many disused video conferencing terminals in the board rooms of companies around the world, and I always ask why? The answers are always the same. ".... the person that bought that has left, no one knows how to use it", "... it never worked properly" or "....we only use phone conferences now, because that always works."

So complexity, fast evolving standards, and large numbers of failed calls have been the bane of the video conferencing industry for many years. Those that have persisted have generated a lot of value but for many users it has all been too much. When you rely on technology and it doesn't work, you have a very short tolerance level.

So back to the question, should you invest in Telepresence now? Well of course video quality has now improved dramatically with the advent of HD video coupled with high speed networks. However, what has not changed is the challenge of incompatible standards, the interoperability between hardware suppliers, the need to schedule a dedicated room, the requirement for high levels of bandwidth and dedicated support from IT.

So if you believe that quality is the answer to universal acceptance - think again. Think of a mobile phone, think of noisy lines, dropped calls, and having to reconnect multiple times.

Has this been a draw back to the explosion in mobile audio calls? No of course not. We tolerate massive quality issues compared to using a fixed phone. We tolerate these issues because using a mobile phone is easy, convenient, it nearly always works and has become an essential communications tool. Video conferencing is not essential. It never will be, and users always take the path of convenience and least resistance.

By all means invest in your expensive video networks, but be aware that it will only serve a very small number of people in your organisation. The majority of your staff will continue to collaborate via a phone (audio) conference, with an integrated web conference solution allowing data sharing. It is really all they need.

You should make sure that you are getting your performance gains from the simple no brainers first. Once you get the collaboration working practices in place, add a bit of video by all means, but it's not the place to start.

Tim Duffy is executive chairman at MeetingZone