Time to link by video
03 May 2010
Are we on the cusp of a shift of volcanic proportions, towards meeting people around the globe from the convenience of our own offices?
A couple of weeks ago my colleague, Paul Wolfe, wrote about ‘The silence of the skies’ in relation to European airspace grinding to a halt as a consequence of a very inconsiderate Icelandic volcano.
His piece concentrated on the immediate consequences of losing air transport for both people and goods, but he did mention something that coincides with a recent report from Frost & Sullivan – ‘telepresence’. The focus of the report is on the market potential, but our ash-filled skies made many of us think about the necessity for so much international travel and, secondly, as we revelled in the peace (I live under the London Gatwick flightpath), the environmental benefits of cutting back on air travel also became apparent.
Assuming then that the research for the report ‘Telepresence Global Market’ was done prior to the volcano erupting, it could be that while its estimated market value for 2009 of $396 million might be accurate, its forecast for reaching $826 million by 2015 might be on the conservative side. Rising oil prices could obviously have a greater effect in coming years as well.
“The effectiveness of the latest technologies and the impact of the global economic downturn are impelling businesses to re-assess visual collaboration such as video telephony, videoconferencing and telepresence as viable solutions to facilitate reduced operations costs and create new sources of productivity. The volcano ash clouds from Iceland are just the latest in a long line of issues that have impacted business travel,” said Frost & Sullivan Principle Analyst Dominic Dodd. “Telepresence in particular, has played a pivotal role over the last two to three years in helping build greater awareness and in re-focussing executive-level attention on visual collaboration.
“There is growing opportunity for visual collaboration in general – being driven by an irresistible combination of technological developments and increasing customer need,” explained Dodd. “While telepresence can uniquely offer a number of attractive customer benefits, there are concerns about the cost and availability of the network required to support it, and also how effectively it may work with other parts of a customer’s video estates.”
Visual collaboration endpoints are expected to fare well in the long term. Although the product format by which immersive telepresence is delivered is likely to change, the overall demand for its unique features and benefits will continue to grow, says the report. The emerging custom telepresence solutions segment is expected to gain further importance over the next three to four years with several opportunities for systems integrators, visual collaboration applications developers and managed services providers.
“While the latest research indicates that the market for today’s ready-built systems will ultimately reach its upper-limit within the next five years, it also shows how growth demand for the immersive experience can accelerate as it is fed by other product sets such as high definition videoconferencing and custom telepresence solutions,” concluded Dodd. More details of the report can be found on the Frost & Sullivan web site.
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