Video Conferencing's Coming Boom: Polycom CEO Predicts Rapid Growth

The telecommunications industry has been touting videoconferencing technology since at least 1964, when AT&T displayed its Picturephone at the New York World's Fair. In fact, the concept of the videophone is nearly as old as the phone itself, and prototypes predate the Beatles by many decades.
 
Given its long history, one might have expected that the public would have latched onto the technology, but that just hasn't been the case. While new modes of communication, from email to texting, instant messaging and wireless phones have been adopted at astonishing rates, video communications have lagged -- at least until now.

Thanks to a combination of better technology, lower prices and faster Internet connections, video communications finally are moving into the mainstream. "The industry is at an inflection point," says Andy Miller, CEO of Polycom (PLCM), an industry leader based in Pleasanton, Calif.

"In the past, video communications was mostly a boardroom technology, but that is rapidly changing," Polycom roughly splits the $2 billion market with its Norwegian rival Tandberg, which Cisco (CSCO) acquired earlier this year. Revenue growth for the industry is rising up, according to Miller. He expects the company to grow about 40% this year. IDC (IDC) predicts the compound annual growth rate for the industry for the next five years will be about 23%, roughly twice as fast as during the previous five.

Click Here to Read Full Article

blinklist : BoingBoing : del.icio.us : digg : furl :
shadows : simpy : Slashdot : spurl : yahoo
Posted by Dal on July 1, 2010 01:08 PM |
Posted to Polycom

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.asteriskvoipnews.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/638

« Asterisk libpri 1.4.11.3 Now Available | Main | U.S. has 21 million VoIP subscribers according to FCC report »