Traditionally, video conferencing of has been available only to the major names in the industry and had involved large upfront costs – going beyond tens of thousands of dollars. However, this has changed considerably with the advent of cloud-based video conferencing. All of a sudden, you can set up video conferences with clients, collaborators and people you have never met before.
Conferencing is not limited to merely talking. You can share documents and videos, work collaboratively, invite additional members and record what is being said at costs that are different less than $50 per participant per month. While the impact of this technology is yet to sink in, cloud based video conferencing, coupled with 3G services now beginning to be available in large parts of the world is changing corporate communication.
Cloud services have brought about what is now called Unified Communication solutions to business, healthcare and many other industries. It does not matter if you are in a boardroom or on the move, if you are on a network, you can be part of the conference. This is the power of cloud-based video conferencing.
Here are some of the key benefits of the technology –
- Costs - Traditional, boardroom-based video conferencing equipment involved very large capital expenditure. Costs could run into several hundred thousand dollars. Every additional node cost big money to set up. There was also a need to get dedicated ISDN circuits or other connectivity. All of these out the technology out of the reach of a vast majority of businesses. With cloud based video conferencing, all the action occurs in the cloud and the user simply needs broadband connectivity and a device that can support a browser.
- Skilled manpower – Traditional video conferencing systems needed qualified manpower to manage the set-up, security and connectivity needs of the system. These added significant costs to the running of a video conferencing system. Cloud-based systems do not need any skilled manpower at the user premises. All the skills are required at the cloud end of the system and are included in the rental cost.
- Managing protocols – In traditional systems, companies either used a common system or ran into huge difficulties with protocols and standards. This problem just does not occur with cloud based systems – even if the end users are using very different systems. All the issues of transcoding and changing formats and protocols is handled by the cloud service provider. If a user were to try and manage that themselves, they would need highly skilled manpower and equipment.
- Security – In all video conferencing systems, security is a major concern. Hackers have long known that they can actually enter corporate boardrooms of they could hack into the system. Cloud-based video conferencing systems boast better security since they have professionals handling their security.
- Flexibility – Since just a high speed Internet connection is required, the cloud-based video conferencing system is far more flexible and allows for a large degree of location independence. A user on a high speed mobile telephony network can be connected with ease using a smartphone or a tablet.
- Ability to add additional users – In the boardroom-based video conferencing, additional system, if you wanted to another location, it involved major capital expenditure. With cloud-based systems, you just purchase or rent another license – typical costs being $50 per month or less per user.
As with all other types of cloud computing applications, you get access to the latest equipment, software and capability when you work with the cloud. Setting up requires practically no work and the quality of the video and audio stream is nearly as good as studio based ‘traditional’ video conferencing. In these difficult economic times, cloud based video conferencing has given businesses – both big and small - new capabilities in corporate communications.
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About the Guest Author:
Sanjay Srivastava has been active in computing infrastructure and has participated in major projects on cloud computing, networking, VoIP and in creation of applications running over distributed databases. Due to a military background, his focus has always been on stability and availability of infrastructure. Sanjay was the Director of Information Technology in a major enterprise and managed the transition from legacy software to fully networked operations using private cloud infrastructure. He now writes extensively on cloud computing and networking and is about to move to his farm in Central India where he plans to use cloud computing and modern technology to improve the lives of rural folk in India.
