Cisco & Hershey Chocolate

Last week, Cisco and Hershey Chocolate announced a joint project bringing elementary school students in America and Ghana together over video. Hershey brought the video conference to students in Hershey, PA and in Ghana – where many work in cocoa fields for the company. Hershey wanted to create a bridge between the two communities (and countries) and provide the opportunity for the children to enjoy the benefits of interacting with one another over video. It snowed in Hershey the day of the video conference, and the children in Ghana saw it snowing live over video and were absolutely delighted and overjoyed by the experience.

To make this all happen, Hershey needed Cisco’s expertise and technology to overcome several challenges to make their idea a reality. Electricity and internet availability were an issue in Ghana, where frequent and widespread outages are considered the norm – so Cisco installed a small generator in the school, as well as a microwave relay to extend bandwidth over the last mile from the town center to the schoolhouse.

This exercise proved to be a huge learning experience for all involved; students, teachers, community members, Cisco and Hershey. Kudos to Cisco CEO John Chambers, who often says that Cisco wants to change the way the world works, lives, plays, and learns. Projects such as these show that he puts his money where his mouth is.

About VSGi

VSGi is a nationwide leader in Video Conferencing, Telepresence, AV Integration, and Hosted (Cloud) Video Services. VSGi leverages a cross-functional team of sales, engineering, project management and 24/7/365 technical support personnel to deliver the highest quality solutions to customers. VSGi’s unmatched experience in communications solutions provides its customers a fully integrated turnkey solution including design, configuration, project management and implementation, installation, testing, training and ongoing support.

VSGi is partnered with the world’s leading Video Conferencing Providers, including Polycom, Cisco, Vidyo. For more information on VSGi, visit www.vsgi.com

Polycom Announces Revenues of $339 Million for First Quarter 2013

Polycom announced yesterday its earnings for Q1 2013. It exceeded industry analysts’ consensus reports. The company had revenue of $338.80 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $336.28 million. The announcement comes just one week after Vidyo announced its second straight year of best ever annual revenues.

All signs are pointing towards growth in the industry, but what is driving the growth? New Solutions? New models of deployment and delivery of service?

The answer is both, and in short, it is The Cloud. The video and collaboration space is one that is always evolving, embracing new technologies and adapting deployment and delivery models to provide better solutions for the enterprise, education, and government. And recently, as video has shifted to a cloud based, service provider model, demand has increased across all industries. Technologies that used to be installed and managed on premise are now being hosted and managed by experienced Video-as-a-Service (VaaS) Providers, freeing up customers to concentrate on their core businesses, as opposed to managing video and network infrastructure. As a result, Hosted and Cloud Video Services now make up the fastest growing segment within the video market.

Check out an excerpt from the press release below from Polycom’s CEO Andrew Miller.

“Polycom posted better than expected Q1 results as we continued to deliver industry-leading products and unmatched interoperability, along with strong sales execution,” stated Andrew M. Miller, Polycom President and Chief Executive Officer. “With the recent release of our breakthrough Polycom(R) RealPresence(R) CloudAXIS(TM) Suite, Polycom is now shipping an innovative, best-in-class portfolio, which extends secure, enterprise-grade video collaboration to anyone with a Web browser. We remain focused on our long-term strategic plan to make video collaboration ubiquitous in the enterprise.”

“We are pleased to report 3 percent year-over-year revenue growth in the Americas, our largest geographic segment, 8 percent year-over-year revenue growth in UC Personal Devices, and 10 percent year-over-year revenue growth in Services,” continued Eric Brown, Polycom Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. “We remain confident in our competitive position in the unified communications and collaboration marketplace, and we are seeing good traction with our new product releases.”

Have you considered moving your video to The Cloud?

About VSGi

VSGi is a nationwide leader in Video Conferencing, Telepresence, AV Integration, and Hosted (Cloud) Video Services. VSGi leverages a cross-functional team of sales, engineering, project management and 24/7/365 technical support personnel to deliver the highest quality solutions to customers. VSGi’s unmatched experience in communications solutions provides its customers a fully integrated turnkey solution including design, configuration, project management and implementation, installation, testing, training and ongoing support.

VSGi is partnered with the world’s leading Video Conferencing Providers, including Polycom, Cisco, Vidyo. For more information on VSGi, visit www.vsgi.com

Study Shows Video Conferencing Positively Impacts Hospice Care

We hear about the amazing benefits of telehealth every day. Most people now know that video has changed the way doctors and medical professionals provide care to their patients. It enables more informed decision making and enhanced quality of care. It creates a more convenient, efficient, and cost effective delivery of care. It can save lives through remote consultations, whether urgent or diagnostic. The list goes on…

And while many studies have shown the benefits of video applications in telehealth / telemedicine, there has not been nearly as much discussion or analysis around Hospice care, which is an important area to consider. In a recent study published by Telemedicine and e-Health, it was shown that video conferencing is a valuable tool in allowing family and caregivers participate in Hospice care. The study analyzed 114 meetings between caregivers (doctors, nurses, social workers, priests, etc.) and family members using Web-based video conferencing and 86 meetings over telephone service videophones. The web-based video was deemed superior in image quality, and in interviews with 19 different caregivers, they were more positive about the video conferencing experience.

The below text is an excerpt from the original article by: George Demiris, Debra Parker Oliver, Robin L. Kruse, and Elaine Wittenberg-Lyles. Telemedicine and e-Health. April 2013, 19(4): 235-240. doi:10.1089/tmj.2012.0185.

Overall, participants found the use of videoconferencing to be a positive experience and found the use of telehealth in this context as useful and essential to communicating with the entire hospice team. One participant specifically commented on the ability to become introduced to team members who were essential to their loved one’s care but whom they did not meet in person: “I think it’s nice to actually put a face to someone that’s talking to you. You know, there were so many people I hadn’t ever seen before, you know, that didn’t come out there, like the pharmacist and things like that that I never had seen in person. Just to see someone’s face made it nice.”

Follow the link to read the results of the study.

About VSGi

VSGi is a nationwide leader in Video Conferencing, Telepresence, AV Integration, and Hosted (Cloud) Video Services. VSGi leverages a cross-functional team of sales, engineering, project management and 24/7/365 technical support personnel to deliver the highest quality solutions to customers. VSGi’s unmatched experience in communications solutions provides its customers a fully integrated turnkey solution including design, configuration, project management and implementation, installation, testing, training and ongoing support.

VSGi is partnered with the world’s leading Video Conferencing Providers, including Polycom, Cisco, Vidyo. For more information on VSGi, visit www.vsgi.com

Vidyo Announces Another Record Year

With Vidyo announcing last month that it had another record year, they continue to earn attention from video conferencing market leaders Polycom and Cisco. Vidyo’s focus is on virtual infrastructure (software) rather than physical hardware like the longtime leaders in the video space. The virtualized architecture provides Vidyo users access to a low cost alternative to Polycom or Cisco’s hardware based video products. The VidyoGateway and VidyoPortal Virtual Editions provide super high quality video conferencing at the price of audio conferencing, which is impossible with a legacy, hardware based deployment.

Vidyo has seen its revenue increase by 68 percent over the past year. Also, much of the growth has come through its reseller partners. Vidyo’s revenue through its top 25 partners has increased by 435 percent over last twelve months. It’s worth noting that many of these partners are also Polycom and Cisco partners.

It could be argued that Vidyo’s product offering is simply following the trend of more virtualized infrastructure. While Vidyo provides customers the ability to use on-premise equipment, private cloud, public cloud and hybrid cloud offerings, Polycom has taken notice by offering its CloudAXIS solution. CloudAXIS allows anyone to connect to someone using Skype, Facebook, or Google Talk. Regardless of who wins this race, it seems that virtual interoperability with consumer video solutions is something that the market is demanding – and the manufacturers are delivering.

About VSGi

VSGi is a nationwide leader in Video Conferencing, Telepresence, AV Integration, and Hosted (Cloud) Video Services. VSGi leverages a cross-functional team of sales, engineering, project management and 24/7/365 technical support personnel to deliver the highest quality solutions to customers. VSGi’s unmatched experience in communications solutions provides its customers a fully integrated turnkey solution including design, configuration, project management and implementation, installation, testing, training and ongoing support.

VSGi is partnered with the world’s leading Video Conferencing Providers, including Polycom, Cisco, Vidyo. For more information on VSGi, visit www.vsgi.com

Video Conferencing Deployment is Changing…

The perception that video conferencing requires premise based infrastructure that is costly and complex to manage – often requiring a large budget and a dedicated, on site resource…is no longer accurate.  While this may have been true several years ago, many video users have recognized that video conferences now live in virtual environments (THE CLOUD!) without any infrastructure required at the customer’s location, and little or no IT expertise is necessary to schedule or launch a call.

So the secret is out.  Cloud Video Services offer a simple, cost effective way to enable video for remote or distributed workforces without the costs associated with a tradtional (legacy) deployment.  From the desktop to the boardroom to your mobile devices, you can be connected anywhere, anytime – for a fraction of the cost of a legacy system.  And the quality is outstanding – 1080p HD, just like a traditional board room deployment.

Back in the day, IT Managers had to manage a ton of stuff themselves that, from today’s standpoint, just didn’t make a lot of sense.  Local email and website hosting, customer databases, accounting software, etc.  As crazy as it seems now, it was considered normal at one time to manage as much as possible with internal resources, even when it may have been a better decision to partner with an expert.

We have to start thinking about video the same way.

Partnering with an experienced managed service provider for Video Conferencing has many advantages when compared to traditional deployments, including

• Reduced CAPEX and OPEX
• Expert management of Infrastructure, Network, and Services
• Faster Installation, Delivery, and Deployment
• Compltely Customizable (VaaS)
• Easy to Scale

Consider moving your video to The Cloud for more efficient and more productive video collaboration.  Whether you choose VSGi or another managed video service provider, the advantages are easy to see, and most importantly, they allow you to concentrate on your business, not on managing your video conferencing system.

About VSGi

VSGi is a nationwide leader in Video Conferencing, Telepresence, AV Integration, and Hosted (Cloud) Video Services. VSGi leverages a cross-functional team of sales, engineering, project management and 24/7/365 technical support personnel to deliver the highest quality solutions to customers. VSGi’s unmatched experience in communications solutions provides its customers a fully integrated turnkey solution including design, configuration, project management and implementation, installation, testing, training and ongoing support.

VSGi is partnered with the world’s leading Video Conferencing Providers, including Polycom, Cisco, Vidyo. For more information on VSGi, visit www.vsgi.com