Enterprises adopt VC to cut travel costs

SCOTTSDALE, USA: About 68 per cent of those who want to use video conferencing in near future cite ‘travel reduction’ as the most important factor driving their adoption of this technology in the next 12 months, besides convenience and efficiency.

This is how market intelligence spotted the drivers of video conferencing as it studied various respondents that do not currently use video conferencing.

“US business users find video conferencing to be more appealing and beneficial when the sessions involve sharing files, collaborating on documents, and adding or including key individuals in the sessions dynamically,” says David Lemelin, In-Stat analyst.

“There is also a strong desire to use video conferencing capabilities at the desktop, where users have better access to their complete set of communications and collaboration capabilities, including IM integration.”

As shared in a press note, this recent research by In-Stat found that 57 per cent of decision-makers indicated their organizations have formal video conferencing policies. Most of these policies are designed to maximize return on the video conferencing investment, particularly when it can be used to mitigate travel.

It also came out that Microsoft was cited as the most used vendor among SOHO and small businesses while Polycom was the most used vendor among mid-size and enterprise businesses.

Overall, Cisco saw the highest increase of users from 2007 to 2008. The research, 'True Collaboration Key to Video Conferencing Adoption' covers the North American market for video conferencing.