Video Phones in the Office?

The rise and fall of video phone providers and manufacturers have left today's companies with little to choose from the in way of reasonably priced solutions. And despite provider's pitches, company uptake has never approached vendor's prediction casts. This begs the question: will video phones ever make sense for business users?

Video Conferencing offers countless benefits, such as:

• Enhanced productivity and reduced costs – eliminating the need for business travel keeps your staff in-house, allowing  for more time to be spent on mission-critical issues, and less money spent on travel
• Better business relationships – the convenience of video conferencing allows you to meet with your customers, partners, and employees more frequently and effectively, with quality that rivals in-person meetings
• Instant feedback – meet and collaborate with your international branches and customers in remote areas

Thanks to vendor's aggressive marketing, video conferencing technology has made considerable headway into the corporate conference room over the past ten years. That being said however, the average employee's desktop continues to be devoid of this collaborative tool.

Despite multiple reports that show desktop video technology enhances employee productivity and offers a noteworthy return on investment, many companies today still seem apprehensive about utilize desktop video conferencing technologies. Perhaps it is due to misconceptions – either about bandwidth use or dependability – but more than likely the main concern that keeps customers from employing video phone technology is its cost.

In an attempt to ease customer apprehension and make video phones a more viable alternative to deskbound phones, providers are looking for ways to bring costs down, so they average similar to what you would pay for a VoIP handset. Unfortunately, compromises have to be made to make that a possibility. For instance, one cost-efficient video phone might be built to work only with a specific vendor's hosted VoIP service, while another uses public video conferencing services (like Skype). Others, still, work with a majority of the leading VoIP and video conferencing standards and provide comprehensive features, like H.323.  Skeptical vendors are opting to go for the more conventional video phone system that blends single-user video conferencing ability with multiline VoIP/SIP phones.

Here at ConferenceShopper.com, our partnership with the industry's leading providers allows us to offer you the most comprehensive and cost-efficient conferencing solutions available on the market.

Now we want to know what you think about video conferencing. Have you had any good/bad experiences with video conferencing? Do you think it'll become a 'thing of the past'?

Source: Conferencing Services