News & Viewson Unified Communications & Collaboration

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study, class syllabi, reading lists, and links to informational videos; can change layouts and customize page views; and can view a consolidated activity stream of updates from their network, communities, and people they are following. The WebEx Meetings and

Messenger integrations let learners move from social networking to real-time communications via click-to-start IM and web conferencing directly from within WebEx Social. The offer includes WebEx web conferencing for up to eight attendees via VoIP. (WebEx web conferencing for beyond eight attendees is available at an additional cost).

The cloud-based offering is designed to help universi-ties dynamically manage user access to the system through integrations with mainstream technolo-gies including Active Directory synchronization and Shibboleth authentication. List price is $14 per user per year for the hosted WebEx Social for Education service, and the offering is also available in a premis-es-based version.

No doubt Blackboard and Adobe are paying attention. As leaders in web conferencing in

Earlier this month WR senior analyst Alan Greenberg traveled to Denver for Educause, the largest IT / telecom event in North America for higher education. There he met with some familiar names: Adobe, Blackboard, Microsoft, Cisco, Sonic Foundry, TechSmith, 323Link, and Echo360, as well as some vendors not so well known to the non-EDU crowd for hanging around in education: Alcatel-Lucent, Citrix Online, and Dell. Yes, that Dell. More on that in a moment. Major / minor announcements from Educause and What Alan Saw and Thinks:

• Cisco WebEx Social for Higher Education — This integrated, cloud-based solution packages integrated WebEx Social, WebEx Meetings (latest web conferencing incarnation), and WebEx Messenger for presence and instant messaging delivered through the Cisco WebEx Cloud. Developed

with input from a consortium of “A” list universities, the offering is designed to connect people, capture the vast knowledge and expertise within an educational ecosystem, and make those resources easily available to learners and educators.

WebEx Social is centered on a Facebook-like activity feed. Educators and learners can quickly identify subject matter experts, gather group feedback, co-author documents, and gain ready access to mentors & relevant communities based on their course of

Volume 13 Issue #24 30-November-12

Educause 2012 Goes Social and MobileAlan D. Greenberg, agreenberg@wainhouse.com

WebEx Social View with Various Tools

WebEx Social for Education marks a serious push into a market WebEx has blatantly ignored for some years now (other Cisco divisions were at the party, but never WebEx).

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demonstrate how Windows 8 can support multiple users on the same and various devices far more seamlessly than any version of Windows ever did before. Where the iPad is registered to one user, Windows 8 allows for multiple users to share the same device. That could be very useful in educational and consumer market settings, where access and affordability are big issues, especially on many K-12 campuses. Other features I think will be interesting for education: the touch-centric “Tiles-“based UI; “Charms,” which is a much more context-sensitive Start bar than we’ve seen before; and “Snap multi-tasking” that lets users run two apps side-by-side. A Wi-Fi Direct feature supports peer-to-peer device connectivity, enabling high-bandwidth sharing of media and content between devices without requiring a separate Wi-Fi access point. Think a Bluetooth on steroids, made easier (in theory and as long as we’re talking to Windows 8, Wi-Fi-enabled devices). And back to what we cover, collaboration: Lync and Skype are now more inter-twined than ever before, and the next release of Office 2013 reportedly will include IM and federation with Lync and Skype. So it will be worth watching how Microsoft finally begins to leverage for education its disparate office productivity and UC platforms, perhaps using Windows 8 as the glue.

Microsoft is not ceding the huge education market to Apple or Cisco, notwithstanding the many Apple logos one sees on campuses. Where for a while it was losing the OS wars in education, it clearly is betting on Lync, Skype, Office, and, most importantly, Win 8 playing a role in this market. Its campus licensing agreements for Windows 8 will include very low-cost USB-key-enabled upgrades on older machines, while it aggressively markets a slew of built-in apps and the Windows Store (still barely stocked) to the ever-evolving enterprise community. On the surface (bad pun intended) and without getting much time

education, they definitely face a threat from Cisco (and also Citrix, which has quietly grown its education-focused “GoTo” sales force significantly in the past year). WebEx Social for Education marks a serious push into a market WebEx has blatantly ignored for some years now (other Cisco divisions were at the party, but never WebEx). With Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) all the rage in higher ed, Cisco may be targeting this market at precisely the right time.

• Cameron Evans, Microsoft’s CTO for Education, walked us through the complete Windows 8 ecosystem, showing how Windows 8 might work on a touch device like a Surface tablet or a Perceptive Pixel display, a PC, and just about any device that can run Windows 7. So much has been written about Windows 8 in the mainstream and tech press, this is not the place for that. But a few opinions and observations: Windows 8 is really optimal for a touch device, no news here, but the OS has portability across a variety of device types and a feature set that many in education and general enterprises will like. First, for Microsoft it’s no longer about the device, but about the individual who is mobile, and with some present and coming hooks into Office 365, Lync, and Skype — which have been re-engineered already for Windows 8 environments — I don’t think we’ll see Microsoft quibbling quite the way it did in the past about licensing for limited numbers of devices (seats, well, we’ll see, some things never change). Like Apple, Microsoft finally understands the importance of enabling its users on multiple devices, allowing for a far more portable experience. Cameron likes to

Windows 8 Demo on a Perceptive Pixel Display

Greenberg and Cisco’s Harold Pulhug, Enterprise Collaboration Platform Product Manager

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yet to play with it, I like it. After all, this release really takes advantage of the BYOD / BYOA movement in education and corporate markets — and how that movement is already beginning to transform education. Short term the desktop OS duopoly likely will remain just that, while there will be no monopoly or duopoly when it comes to either mobile devices or to collaboration tech in education: there are many vendors feasting at the table.

• Another vendor feasting at the table is Echo360. One minute Dr. Perry Samson of the University of Michigan raises a $1 million grant, and then minutes later (OK, 5 or 6 years) commercializes an interactive technology. Blink and 15 months later, Echo360 comes along and scoops up LectureTools

for an unspecified amount. LectureTools is meant to change classroom teaching by engaging students with their laptops, tablets, and cellphones, regardless of class size — getting

away from dedicated hardware / clickers. Instructors can offer polls or chat with their class while students can add notes directly to their instructor’s presentation. It runs in the cloud and requires no downloads or special installation.

• Sonic Foundry announced Mediasite 6.1, enhancing the Mediasite EX. The focus of Release 6.1 is on a new user-generated content module, with a desktop recorder that allows for full-screen and partial screen recording, as well as the ability to upload video from any source and automatically publish to the EX platform. Automated metadata creation and content tagging supports both Mediasite-recorded and other uploaded content, making it instantly searchable and navigable. Rounding out this release are content approval workflows, a web-based Mediasite Editor, import of MP4 files, and centralized Mediasite Recorder updates that allow easier remote administrator management.

• TechSmith was promoting a relatively new hosted offering of its Camtasia Relay lecture capture

solution. The software is no different from the CPE version, and the licensing approach is somewhat similar, based on numbers of simultaneous encodings. A one-year hosted Relay license costs just a bit less, however, than a full CPE-based license, starting at $11,995 year 1, dropping to $7,995 in years 2 and 3 (based on 7 simultaneous encodings). TechSmith also showed off Camtasia Fuse, a free mobile app for Relay users. Fuse allows Relay users to upload camera videos to their Camtasia Relay server from their iOS or Android device. The company announced Ask3, a free app that enables educators and learners with iPads to share knowledge and collaborate via threaded, text, and video conversations. Finally, the company bragged about its $5 iOS / Android app, Coach’s Eye, a video capture app with slow-motion review, audio voice-over, annotation, and simple sharing capabilities. You can guess from the product name who they’re targeting with this one.

• Blackboard continues to make gains with Learn (its LMS) upgrades and drive significant activity to mobile devices in its Collaborate platform. The Collaborate team indicated it is experiencing major growth in Arabic speaking nations and is working on some very cool content creation tools now in beta. On the LMS side of the house, Blackboard Learn released Service Pack 10, an overhauled feature set that freshens up the user interface and makes improvements to support social learning and help institutions capture “teachable moments” (aka ad hoc learning).

• Finally, a note on where we started at Educause, our first briefing with that former PC / server maker, current “solutions provider,” Dell. Anyone who pays attention to the technology industry knows that Dell, along with HP and others, has faced headwinds as

LectureTools iPad AppThe Blackboard Collaborate team is working on some very cool content creation tools now in beta. On the LMS side of the house, Blackboard Learn released Service Pack 10, an overhauled feature set that freshens up the user interface and makes improvements to support social learning.

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Kaltura: $55 Million and CountingSteve Vonder Haar, svonder@wainhouse.com

Speaking of education, streaming platform provider Kaltura has announced it has raised $25 million in a fresh round of venture financing, opening the door to a range of growth opportunities including planned expansion in the Asia-Pacific market. Kaltura, which plays in both educational and corporate markets, now generates the majority of its revenue from North America and Europe. It will use part of its war chest to pursue expanded sales opportunities in Japan, China, Singapore, Australia and South Korea, company chairman and CEO Ron Yekutiel told us in a briefing last week.

With the funding in place, the company also wants to become more aggressive in exploring new growth opportunities in the form of possible acquisitions of smaller technology providers and potential alliances with a broader range of prospective technology and marketing partners. Yekutiel said, “the feeling here is that there is a big swing that we can take, and a big opportunity for us.”

Participants in the $25 million round include new investors Mitsui & Company Global Investment, Inc. and ORIX Ventures. Existing Kaltura investors Nexus

PC’s have been commoditized, Apple and Google more recently have owned mobility, and IT so quickly has been consumerized. So Dell — like its brethren — is attempting its own transformation into functioning as an end-to-end solutions vendor and service provider. In the past we’ve seen Dell focus on the education market in a simple way: “Hey we’ve got hardware, let’s work out special pricing for you! Oh hey we resell SMART. Oh hey we resell Mediasite.” But with a round of acquisitions that have allowed it to focus on virtualization, cloud computing, and mobile device management (Wyse, Secureworks, and many others), Dell is starting to tell a richer story that says “let us help you with your teaching and learning environment, drive IT efficiencies, and we’ll use the cloud to do it.” With all those BYOD and BYOA device- and app-enabled campuses overwhelming higher education these days, Dell’s timing couldn’t be better.

So the theme of Educause 2012 is that you better get mobile, stay social, and pay attention to the dramatic ways in which cloud computing — finally — is changing how higher ed approaches both teaching and learning, and IT. We have more on these vendors and others, such as Alcatel-Lucent’s positioning, 323Link, and Desire2Learn’s push into improving its rather lagging web conferencing capabilities, in an EDU subscription note available later this week.

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PAGE 5Volume 13 Issue #24 / 30 November-12

Venue Partners, Intel Capital, .406 Ventures and Avalon Ventures also participated in the new venture round. Yekutiel said that none of the existing investors allowed their equity stakes to be diluted in the deal, with some actually investing enough new capital to boost their ownership share in the company. With the new round, Kaltura has raised a total of $55 million in venture financing since its inception.

What Steve Thinks: The stakes clearly are getting bigger in the streaming platform marketplace. Coming on the heels of the $35 million investment landed earlier this year by streaming platform provider Ooyala, the Kaltura funding round shows that VC’s are becoming more aggressive in placing significant bets on companies that enable the capture, management and distribution of streaming content.

It’s a stark reversal from a year ago when two of the pioneers of the enterprise streaming platform sector agreed to sell themselves to larger companies. The sale of Accordent to Polycom and Rimage’s purchase of Qumu combined to suggest that the aspirations for streaming start-ups to strike it big were beginning to fizzle out. In some circles, the deals were perceived as signs that streaming platforms were evolving into mere features destined to be subsumed into larger business communications solutions.

The deals for Accordent and Qumu each weighed in around the $50 million mark. The size of the Kaltura investment, however, indicates that venture capitalists see even more value in the newest generation of streaming platform aspirants. If one assumes a 10% equity dilution rate in this latest funding round, Kaltura’s implied market value would rise to $250 million. That’s five-times greater than the value ascribed to Accordent and Qumu just a year ago.

Beyond market valuation, the funding round could be more crucial for Kaltura in terms of market validation. Since its launch, Kaltura has positioned itself as a provider of “open-source” streaming video solutions. Thus part of its success hinges on convincing other technology developers to create applications that can be plugged into the Kaltura platform. If other vendors develop applications for the Kaltura ecosystem, the thinking is that the availability of these features would foster greater demand and wider adoption of Kaltura’s open source software. In a market where conventional wisdom holds that every streaming start-up is destined to be acquired

by a larger company, it becomes strategically risky for developers to commit resources to a streaming platform with an uncertain future. Today about 50 outside software developers offer applications via Kaltura’s open-source software application clearinghouse called the Kaltura Exchange. We believe this roster of partners could grow significantly if Kaltura convinces the marketplace that the new round of venture financing will solidify the company’s prospects of remaining independent. And, no longer is it pre-ordained that Kaltura will be gobbled up by a larger company in the enterprise communications food chain. Broader industry support could lend Kaltura more industry gravitas that could facilitate the stock IPO that venture investors seek.

People & Places Know someone in the industry who changed jobs? Jump into a new role yourself? Email us at wrb@wainhouse.com to share the good news.

• Allegro Development, Ray Hood, President and CEO

• Blackboard, Sig Behrens, President Global Sales

• Cisco Systems, Rowan Trollope, Senior VP for Collaboration

• Rimage, Vern Hanzlik, General Manager Qumu Enterprise Streaming Platform Division

• Whitlock, Brett Busch, Global Account Manager

Back to the Future: Huawei TE30Andrew W. Davis, andrewwd@wainhouse.com

One of our secret agents in Europe recently attended a briefing in which Huawei revealed its latest videoconferencing system — the TE30. Back to the Future 1: For those of you who can remember PictureTel’s SwiftSite and Polycom’s ViewStation, the TE30 brings back the 1997-era set-top box configuration in a 21st century version. It’s smaller, sleeker, feature-rich, and 100x more powerful. According to Huawei’s preliminary spec sheet, the TE30:

Vern Hanzlik

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• Supports the latest ITU video standards, including H.264 baseline profile, high profile, and scalable video coding. Communications protocols include IETF SIP, H.323, and even H.320.

• Supports up to 1080p resolution, dual streams at 720p30, and stereo AAC-LD audio.

• Includes an embedded 12x zoom camera and omni-directional microphone array.

• Has a USB port that allows channel partners to preload all configuration data on a flash drive that will install system data automatically when inserted by an end user. Back to the Future 2 — this is similar to a capability Sony introduced on its own proprietary memory sticks years ago. For Huawei, however, this capability jives well with the company’s strength with wired and wireless carriers. These channel

partners, as well as typical distributors, can leverage the TE30’s easy, do-it-yourself installation capabilities.

• Sports advanced speech recognition capabilities that enable voice dialing. Back to the Future 3 — we wrote about such a feature in the Bulletin on April 1, 2005. Huawei’s system supports both English and Chinese out of the box, but users can “train” the system to recognize any language (for placing calls only). Other features include support for both wired and wireless network connectivity and an entirely new and

improved UI. The unit can be wall-mounted, ceiling-mounted, or placed on top of the monitor, and will have an MSRP of $4700 USD.

What Andrew Thinks: Let’s start with the set-top box concept. With the right mounting hardware, the set-top design makes installation simple and, assuming the embedded microphones do their job right, eliminates lots of messy cable problems. Wi-Fi video also eliminates the network cable, another plus. The TE30 really brings a new dimension to the “all-in-one” concept.

Preliminary scuttlebutt we hear suggests lots of inter-esting and unique features like face recognition and motion enhancement — things on which we would be more comfortable reporting after we have evaluated the system in person. And the details on the SVC support are missing, but the guess is that it will be “standards-compli-ant.” However, it is worth mentioning voice recognition for dialing. Is this Siri for videoconferencing? I’m not sure why Huawei added this capability; it seems to me it will only frustrate users when it fails or dials the wrong end-point and it doesn’t seem to be much of an advance over picking an address in an address book. You will still need the device’s hand held remote or wireless control panel for camera control and other typical functions.

On the other hand, a $4,700 list price for a 1080p system is very aggressive. Huawei has a long history of price leadership (and discounting). Since 1995, a steady suc-cession of product advances combined with more recent channel development programs and active support for industry standards and interoperability organizations have begun to reap rewards.

Vidyo Video Chat in Nintendo Wii UAndrew W. Davis and Alan D. Greenberg

Vidyo has announced that the company’s software platform will power Wii U Chat, a video communications service that is included with every Wii U console, the latest generation of the Wii. Vidyo’s software platform will allow developers to embed video chat into their games, which will work with the front-facing camera on the Wii U controller.

What Andrew (a NON-gamer) Thinks: Some questions are obvious. 1) While Nintendo has been successful in

The USB port jives well with the company’s strength with wired and wireless carriers.

Huawei TE30 side view

TE30 rear view showing connectors

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the past, will people today spend $300-$600 for a new gaming device when so many free or near-free games are available on a tablet? 2) How will gamers adapt to video chat - will it enhance or detract from the gaming experi-ence? 3) Don’t ask me: I haven’t moved beyond solitaire. 4) Will Nintendo put its marketing muscle behind video? So far the press releases and stories in the news about the Wii U have not even mentioned video chat.

What Alan (who has a kid) Thinks: Andrew, good questions! The Wii U has sold 400,000 units in the U.S. alone in its first week as of this past Monday, and Nintendo can’t keep up with holiday retail demand. My 10-year-old loves to text with her best friends and loves her Wii. While I wouldn’t allow her to play games with strangers, it’d be great for her to video chat while GWF: gaming with friends. The XBOX Kinect has had video chat for some time now. A few tech savvy consumers use it, many don’t. But it’s all part of the inevitable march of video to the living room. People still buy TV’s as family entertainment centers and they’ll continue to buy game consoles and use them in more ways (streaming Netflix, video connecting to Mom or Dad on the road) than for “just gaming.” So get off your duff and buy your grandkids a Wii U in time for the holidays!

LifeSize Enhances UVC Platform, Releases New EndpointsIra M. Weinstein, iweinstein@wainhouse.com

LifeSize has released the fourth version of its UVC Platform. The primary enhancement in release 4 is the addition of support for HyperV (Microsoft) virtual servers. When combined with

its existing support for VMware servers, the UVC Platform is now compatible with roughly 85% of the installed base of virtual servers. According to LifeSize, the strategy of making the UVC Platform virtual-server-ready is paying off because more than 90% of UVC Platform licenses sold are for VMs and not appliances.

As a part of this release, LifeSize has also added a new ap-plication dubbed “LifeSize Manager” to the UVC Platform. In beta since January 2012, LifeSize Manager is intended to be the next version of the company’s LifeSIze Control

solution. Key features include enhanced device manage-ment — even through firewalls, device provisioning, end-point monitoring, upgrade management, a web-based scheduler, an integrated reporting engine, faster com-mand execution, and 2x the scalability of LifeSize Control. LifeSize Manager is available for $399 per device, com-pared to $500 per device for LifeSize Control. Given the lower price points and improved functionality, the com-pany expects clients to migrate from Control to Manager over the next 6 –12 months. Other notable additions to the UVC Platform include simplified system installation, a calculator to determine the UVC Platform capabilities per server, and the long-awaited ability for LifeSIze VideoCen-ter to record SIP video calls.

In addition, LifeSIze has announced the release of two new integrated video systems: the LifeSIze Unity 1000 supports 1080p and includes a single 55” display for a list price of $31,000. The LifeSIze Unity 2000 includes dual 55” displays and lists at $60,000.

What Ira thinks: LifeSize was one of the first to offer a package of software-based video conferencing infra-structure components designed for use on virtual serv-ers. Given the strong degree of enterprise acceptance of virtual servers, this move made good sense. The ongoing addition of new features makes this offering even more compelling. As a part of the industry trend away from hardware and over to software, WR expects more vendors will follow LifeSize’s lead and offer virtualization-friendly solutions.

Integrated Systems Europe, Amsterdam RAI, 29-31 January 2013

ISE 2013 will be the largest professional AV and commu-nications trade show ever held in Europe. Featuring over 800 exhibitors occupying more

than 30,000 square meters of floor space, the show is expected to attract over 40,000 attendees from 130 countries worldwide.

ISE 2013 will boast a dedicated Unified Communica-tions Hall where more than 30 companies (including Cisco, Radvision, LifeSize, Huawei, SMART Technolo-gies, Vitec, Axeos and Revolabs) will be showing their latest business presentation and communications tools.

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We’re excited to be returning to Amsterdam for the 9th European UC&C Summit. The focus this year is on developing a UC&C strategy, integrating existing collaborative technologies into next generation solutions, and driving business transformation. We’ll also explore current UC&C challenges and discuss how various solutions address these challenges, including:

• Strategic considerations and best practices for successfully deploying visual and unified communications

• How Mobility and consumerization are driving the need for new solutions

• How cloud-based services for audio and personal-web-based conferencing drive demand for all collaborative services

• How the technologies you deploy today and will deploy tomorrow, such as Lync, Sametime, GoToMeeting, Connect, RealPresence, IP PBX’s, telepresence, social media, audio/video/data, web conferencing, IM & Presence, and the range of UC&C are converging, and how this impacts the enterprise

• Conferencing Managed Services and their importance to large scale deployments

• Streaming and webcasting and how they fit into the enterprise communications strategy

• Driving adoption and maximizing ROI

Save the Date!Wainhouse Research European

UC&C SummitWhen: January 28-29, 2013 (immediately prior to ISE 2013)

Where: NH Barbizon Palace, Amsterdam

Already a WR subscriber?If your organization is already a subscriber

to WR services, you receive a 20% discount off

the registration fee.To get your WR Event discount code, click here

to send an email to WR Client Services.

Questions? Email your inquiry to ams2013@wainhouse.com.

If you’re an enterprise IT strategist, manufacturer, service provider, VAR or SI involved in the UC&C industry, this event is for you and to help you optimize your time and travel budget we are again co-locating the UC&C Summit with ISE 2013. Register here for the UC&C Summit and, if you would also like to attend ISE 2013, we can give you a code for a free registration!

Marc Beattie Andrew Davis Bill Haskins Andy Nilssen Steve Vonder Haar

Easing Access, Entry, and Use

of Collaboration Services to Drive

New Growth

The Changing Way We Work: Workplace Collaboration Trends

and Future Shock

UC chaos in the Enterprise: UC,

Mobility, Content and Social Colliding

Evolving from Meeting at-

a-Distance to Working from

Anywhere

Embracing the Evolution in Enterprise

Streaming

Leading the discussion on these focus areas, we have no fewer than five WR Senior Analysts attending and presenting.

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PAGE 9Volume 13 Issue #24 / 30 November-12

News in Brief• On Wednesday Vidtel announced a major addition

to its gateway service: the built-in ability to connect WebRTC-enabled browsers to en-terprise video conferencing infra-structure via Vidtel’s cloud-based service. Vidtel is the first to bridge

WebRTC-enabled browsers with third-party video conferencing infrastructures such as Cisco, Polycom, or Vidtel’s own MeetMe service without the need for plugins. Vidtel’s WebRTC implementation lets anyone simply open a WebRTC-enabled browser (so far Chrome is first with this) and enter into a video confer-encing session with enter-prise systems (SIP, H.323) as well as web/client-based systems (Skype, Google Talk or other WebRTC-capa-ble endpoints). It is avail-able in beta as a monthly subscription through select Vidtel channel partners and is expected to be gener-ally available by the end of the year.

• Avistar has announced the release of ConnectWare Conferencing, the first of a planned series of cloud-based offerings. This is essentially a SIP-based bridg-ing service that also includes audio conferencing and NAT / firewall traversal. Unlike traditional video bridges, Avistar’s solution leverages separate servers for the video bridging application and for the media processing engine — providing improved scalability. The technology behind ConnectWare Conferencing is hosted and managed by Avistar on Amazon’s cloud solution. The company says ConnectWare is targeting the OEM space and is intended to provide white-label video bridging for solution providers. ConnectWare Conferencing is available in two flavors: $299 per month for one moderator and meeting room sup-porting up to 6 participants per meeting, or $499 per month for 12 participants per meeting.

• Wowza Media Systems unveiled an updated ver-sion of its streaming media server, adding enhanced digital rights management and greater scalability for content distribution. With the Wowza Media Server 3.5 update, the company also unveiled simplified daily

and monthly licensing options for add-on applications that can be run in conjunction with the media server.

• On Tuesday of this week VBrick Systems unveiled Release 2.0 of its 9000 Series, a line of video encoding and decoding appliances that delivers HD video qual-ity and high channel density. Release 2.0 of the 9000 Series enables HD encoding and decoding in the same network element. With encode latency under 50 milliseconds, and end-to-end latency under 100 milliseconds, the 9000 Series offers broadcast quality video.

• Wirecast and Matrox have partnered to offer a live streaming bundle for under $5,000. Features include recording input sources to disk, full HD1080p live streaming, green screen and virtual sets, audio mixing, and streaming to any CDN.

• TenHands has added native support for desktop and application window sharing within video calls; a live chat widget that allows a signed-in user to chat with any online contact or launch a point-to-point call; and increased network reach via TCP support as a transport option (adding to existing UDP support). This latter capability allows TenHands to work in a broader range of network situations, such as where UDP or non-HTTPS ports are blocked.

• A small Illinois startup initially known as Nuvixa, now called Personify, has launched Personify Live, which creates a virtual green screen feel for presenters. This hosted service integrates with web conferencing tools like WebEx, GoToMeeting, and Skype. If hooked up with a depth-sensing camera (Microsoft Kinect or Asus Xtion Pro Live) it takes a presenter’s live video and superimposes it onto the desktop for all to see. An iPhone or Android app is available to function as remote control, letting presenters mute the video feed with the click of a button, and interact with the content to engage an audience. A monthly subscription runs about $19.99 and an annual subscription goes for $199.

• SMART Technologies has introduced a fully-integrat-ed, touch-enabled interactive projector. Targeting education, the SMART LightRaise 60wi interactive

Vidtel is the first to bridge WebRTC-enabled browsers with third-party video conferencing infrastructures such as Cisco, Polycom, or Vidtel’s own MeetMe service without the need for plugins.

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1:1 Bob Koche, Evogh, VP of Business DevelopmentAlan D. Greenberg, agreenberg@wainhouse.com

We met Bob Koche at the Fall 2011 Internet2 conference and were immediately struck by the sense that this startup possessed the entrepreneurial spirit needed to commercialize a technology coming out of a university. A year later Evogh — with its SeeVogh collaboration offering — appears to be making hay while the sun shines. So we caught up with Bob — a true Californian as this interview will reveal — to hear more about SeeVogh.

WR: Tell us how Evogh got started?

BK: Evogh was spun out of Caltech in 2006 after developing a global, HD video collaboration service for the global scientific research community back in 1997. We were lucky to have access to an international high-speed network with tens of thousands of scientists in over 100 countries — all banging on our latest generation platform for over six years. This gave us a unique opportunity and perspective. Basically, we built a global, software-only, video collaboration solution for nearly every client platform. It can be locally hosted on a hybrid-cloud and is monetized in a way that has healthy

margins for both resellers and national carriers. This unique experience and expertise gave us some of our first customers and agreements with national research and education networks, like Internet2 in the U.S. as well as several other international research network providers. Since our reach is international, we are now focusing on building partnerships with local resellers in all continents.

WR: What are you doing from a technology perspective — or any other perspective — that differentiates Evogh?

BK: When you break down the cost of SaaS video conferencing or web meetings you quickly realize that eight out of every ten dollars go to infrastructure. We immediately eliminate this cost by riding on the infrastructure that already exists at our customers’ or is available to them at an ever-shrinking cost. I’m talking about hybrid-clouds and the networks that connect them. Basically, we let our customers self-host on their cloud or any cloud, public or private, which reduces the cost by up to two orders of magnitude.

projector is a touch- and pen-enabled projector that allows two students to simultaneously interact and collaborate with either a pen or finger, making it the first interactive projector solution to enable rich, seamless multi-student collaboration using either touch or pen.

• eZuce Inc. has recently completed certification testing with NextPlane for its openUC solution. The eZuce openUC offering has demonstrated full IM federation with Microsoft Lync during initial Phase I certification, in which users are able to share not only standard presence states UC clients, but also custom status messages and enhanced presence states with federated colleagues.

• Verizon has announced it will offer managed Microsoft Lync services. The managed Lync service can be combined with Verizon SIP trunking that

includes managed session border controllers to create an end-to-end UC&C infrastructure

• Hamburg, Germany-based DEKOM AG has added StarLeaf Telepresence solutions to its mix of Managed Services offerings.

Vendors: Got a video conferencing MCU? WR is currently updating its comparison matrix focused on video bridges. If your company offers a video bridging solution (not service, but a product for sale) or a media server that can be used to host multipoint video confer-ences, please send a note to dabrams@wainhouse.com and we’ll make sure to include your company in the final report.

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We also have a unique SaaS licensing model where we provide an unlimited self-hosted instance (USHI), which can service a large enterprise without it having to buy a seat for every employee. Large organizations love this because they can now afford to offer this to everyone from the daily user to the occasional user without a pre-paid monthly fee for each. This makes video collaboration affordable for everyone at a low, fixed annual cost that is aligned with real use instead of a per-seat monthly subscription model, where unused meeting inventory is wasted on the occasional user.

By far the feature that is getting the most attention lately is our introduction of H.323 and SIP bridging. Since we run on commodity cloud virtual machines (VMs), we eliminate the proprietary hardware and have driven the per-port price of a hybrid-cloud-based MCU to less than $100 per port. The good news is we preserved investments in traditional video conferencing room systems. The bad news is we just commoditized the MCU market — but we believe this lowers the barrier to entry for video conferencing and thus increases the total available market. In fact, we removed the two remaining barriers to global adoption of HD video collaboration by moving the cost for the infrastructure nearly to zero and by providing ubiquitous connectivity between different devices and protocols.

Another big differentiator is our client experience, which will blow your mind, but unfortunately words fall short. You should check out our videos on our web site to really understand. We stream each person’s video to a separate 3D video tile so you can manipulate each tile on your desktop. I can arrange each tile’s size and location. For instance, I want important people on the top and everyone else in an angled, card-deck display below, or maybe everyone of equal size. If you really like someone you can drag their video to a separate display monitor and with one click expand it to full screen. We also permit two or more people in a meeting to simultaneously share their desktop while sending their video. Don’t worry about a document being too small to read. Remember

I said you could move and resize each video tile. This is definitely not your father’s video conferencing system.

There are all sorts of other cool things that we have going. Things like TIP protocol support, where we’ve tested against Cisco Telepresence equipment. We don’t build rooms but if someone wants to, we can put our software on their PC to drive the room and connect to other vendors’ Telepresence rooms for next to nothing using our latest multithreaded video codec. It’s capable of sending multiple HD 1080 video streams from a single commodity PC. We also have some interesting solutions for multi-camera support that should be out before year-end. And we are working on a white-label reseller program so resellers and service providers can quickly self-brand and self-host a SaaS video collaboration solution for their own customers — or create their own custom video web portal with API calls to our backend. From the start we’ve had a carrier class, automated, node-level management layer that smokes everything out there — which is a must when providing and managing a large-scale, cloud based distributed system. I could go on and on, but you’d run out of ink.

WR: Bob, this sounds great, but there must be some technical limitations going on. What about bandwidth requirements? And there are a lot of different degrees of “commodity PC’s” — so how do you manage the challenge all PC-based technologies have faced: the messy world of open computers?

BK: We use a lot of magic to make meetings happen among a com-munity of diverse client platforms. We have a patent on an automated, node-level management technology that dynamically sizes the experience for each user depending on their CPU, bandwidth, and line quality. This way you can have an iPad con-nected over Wi-Fi in Starbucks join a meeting with PC’s on DSL and Tele-presence systems with huge pipes without a gaggle of rocket scientists standing by at your help desk. It just works, automatically.

WR: Hosted video is already pervasive among the WebEx’s and GoToMeetings and Blackboard Collaborates

We use a lot of magic to make meetings happen among a community of diverse client platforms. We have a patent on an automated, node-level management technology that dynamically sizes the experience for each user depending on their CPU, bandwidth, and line quality.

PAGE 12Volume 13 Issue #24 / 30 November-12

of the world on one hand, and cloud-based, SaaS video conferencing bridging is out there with Blue Jeans Network, VideoMeet, and many others. Where’s “the beef” that would lead a customer to choose SeeVogh over existing, better-branded solutions?

BK: “The beef” is in our patties. We have two of them, but let me explain. The first is the user experience, but you’ll have to taste it to believe it. The second is our SaaS model, which is focused on a community and not the per seat user. A community can be a company, a reseller’s customer base, a government agency, or virtually any group of users. Take a community of 20 users and give them unlimited video collaboration for one year. To calculate the annual cost of “Go-to-Web-Jeans” you multiply the 20 users by the monthly cost and then by 12 months. At $50 per user per month that is $12,000 per year. For less than half of that I can give unlimited video conferencing to a company of a thousand or more. Now that is hot and juicy, and since it runs on a hybrid-cloud, resellers can open up their own branded burger stand and offer their own menu of services. My apologies to our vegan friends.

WR: So how about describing a typical license and what it costs to a typical enterprise of say 1,000 employees.

BK: Conceptually we license in a fashion similar to an MCU where the price is per port but in our case since we don’t have anything physical — it’s priced per virtual port — and there is no charge for the clients or maintenance. This means that depending upon community usage the size needed can vary. A company might start with 100 virtual ports and then grow in a linear fashion with user adoption. There may be times when they need 110 virtual ports for an hour or two and they only purchased 100 virtual ports. The beauty of our hybrid-cloud architecture is we can “burst” a meeting to another

cloud so we have a pool of meeting time available to communities that occasionally exceed their capacity. This way they can buy the number of virtual ports that they need instead of what they might need during peak demand. So this company of 1,000 can give everyone an account to schedule meetings with internal and external participants and grow the number of virtual ports parallel to their usage. A 100 virtual port instance sells for $5,000 per year. If you want H.323 and SIP bridging with that same instance the total is $10,000, but through the end of this year we’re giving H.323 and SIP bridging for free so that’s $50 per virtual port per year. That’s very different from $50 per user per month.

WR: What markets are you targeting?

BK: As I mentioned we started out working with national RENs (Research and Education Networks) and have migrated to higher educational institutions that are connected to these networks. We just finalized the integration of InCommon Federation (a trust framework for U.S. education and research) to provide transparent access to SeeVogh for millions of researchers, students, and educators in the US. We have similar initiatives going on internationally. This effectively auto-provisions a university within a few minutes, eliminating a long set-up process.

We are now looking for partners who provide the solution that exists in the last 50 feet, as we’ve simplified everything in between the endpoints. Our partners now can offer a value-added service under their own brand that upends the dominant paradigm. This should be fun.

WR: What keeps you up at night?

BK: The thought that people get stuck in the past and can’t see the future — and my girlfriend.

New Studies from Wainhouse ResearchFor information on WR studies and subscriptions, contact sales@wainhouse.com

4Audio Conferencing

SpotCheck – 2012 Q2 CSP SpotCheckDetails quarterly trends of volume and revenue in 11 countries and 3 regions for audio and web conferencing services.

Market Forecast – 2012 Audio Conferencing Bridge Suppliers Worldwide Market Sizing & 5-Year Forecast This study focuses on the worldwide market for audio conferencing bridges, which are purchased for use by enterprise-based end users and by Confer-encing Services Providers (CSPs) to enable audio conferencing services. Market sizing and forecast segmentation includes supplier type (traditional stand-alone vs. UC platform add-on vis-a-vis Microsoft Lync), sales to enterprises vs. CSPs, and port type (PSTN vs. IP); port ASPs are also included.

PAGE 13Volume 13 Issue #24 / 30 November-12

© 2012 Wainhouse Research34 Duck Hill Terrace, Duxbury, MA 02332 USA Tel +1 617.500.8090

4Distance Education & e-Learning

Research Note – Educause 2012 Topline Educause 2012 in Denver – the largest IT / telecom event in North America for higher education – offered visits with some familiar names: Adobe, Blackboard, Dell, Microsoft, Cisco, Sonic Foundry, and Echo360. This research note goes into greater detail about most of the vendors than was provided in our WR Bulletin story, while also covering other vendors exclusively in this note, including Alcatel-Lucent, 323Link, and Desire2Learn.

Vendor Profile – Watchitoo Founded in early 2007, Watchitoo provides a hosted, real-time collaboration platform that brings together multimedia presentations and video conferencing to create a type of “virtual online stage” for presenting collaborative content to small classes and large audiences. While it focuses on three major application areas / markets, is Watchitoo ready for prime time?

4Group Video Conferencing

SpotCheck – Videoconferencing Endpoints & Infrastructure Q3-2012Worldwide and regional unit sales, revenues, and market shares for videoconferencing endpoints and infrastructure technologies, with breakdowns by type of product (multi-codec, single-codec, executive or video MCU and other video infrastructure)

Research Note – Evolution and Revolution (H.265, WebRTC)Two winds of change blowing in the video conferencing world Two technology developments are likely to impact the visual communications industry and customer base. H.265 is an evolutionary change that follows the long term trend for new ITU-standard compression algorithms and is unlikely to upset the existing market leaders. WebRTC, on the other hand, represents a potential revolutionary development that could dramatically alter both the way we communicate as well as the market leader positions.

Metrics Survey – Video Conferencing & Unified Communications Channel Partner SurveyThis 2012 survey of ~ 250 video conferencing and UC channel partners provides insight into the collaboration space from the distributor / reseller / service provider perspective. Key data points include which solutions channel partners offer, the coverage for the leading vendors across the space, 2012 revenue expectations and growth vs. 2011, revenue breakdown between products and services, channel partner margins by product / service, and much more.

4Streaming & Webcasting

Vendor Profile – KontikiCorporate profile of enterprise streaming technology vendor Kontiki discusses evolution of the peer-to-peer networking company as it pursues more aggressive partnering strategy to foster more rapid development of enterprise streaming platform solutions.

Research Note – Here Come the HybridsBlended Platforms Marry the Strengths of SaaS & On-Premise Platforms Growing corporate acceptance of cloud computing is reshaping the way technology platforms enabling enterprise streaming are developed, deployed and used. Now more vendors are working to offer blended solutions that combine the best attributes of both on-premise and hosted capabilities. This report discusses the move towards these hybrid solutions, how this evolution is re-shaping the competitive landscape for vendors in the enterprise streaming sector and the implications this change has on the way end users incorporate streaming video into business communications.

4Personal and Web-Based Conferencing

Web Conferencing Offering Comparison MatrixAn in-depth comparison of ~175 specific features as implemented across 32 web conferencing offerings. Vendors include: Adobe, AnyMeeting, Arkadin, AT&T, Avaya, BigBlueButton, Blackboard, Brother, Cisco, Citrix, Digital Samba, FUZE, FastViewer, Glance, iLinc, InterCall, LogMeIn, IBM, MeetingBurner, Mitel, Microsoft, omNovia, PGi, RHUB, ReadyTalk, Saba, SMART, Sonexis, YuuGuu, and Yugma.

Metrics Survey – Video Conferencing & Unified Communications Channel Partner SurveySee Group Video Conferencing service description

Vendor Profile – Citrix OnlineDetailed information, insight, and analysis on Citrix Online and its personal & web-based related offerings (includes Podio).

4Unified Communications

Metrics Survey – Video Conferencing & Unified Communications Channel Partner SurveySee Group Video Conferencing service description

Provider Reviews – 2012 Global UCaaS Vendor ReviewsA critical review and assessment of top 12 worldwide UCaaS providers. Includes a summary of UC features, company background, UC product description, and analysis of each provider’s approach.

Editor: Alan D. Greenberg: agreenberg@wainhouse.comComments and PR news to: wrb@wainhouse.com

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