Giving that extra video Octane to Business(es)

BANGALORE, INDIA: Sanjay Bansal, founder, chairman of the board and managing director of  Business Octane, in a telephonic interaction with Deepa Damodaran of CIOL, talks about how he started the new venture and how it stands a chance against majors in the video conferencing domain. Excerpts:

CIOL: What does the name Business Octane suggest and how did you start this venture?

Sanjay Bansal: Octane means energy, i. e to give businesses more energy.

With my experience in video conferencing domain, I saw that there was a huge scope to improve the experience of ordinary video conferencing technology.

Business Octane was launched in 2007 with the vision to become the best in the world in video conferencing domain, by not just making video conferencing as good as a face to face meeting, but even better than that.

CIOL: Are video conference and tele presence two different technologies?

Sanjay: Today people call every high definition (HD) video conferencing as telepresence.

Before HD videoconferencing came into picture, there used to be very poor quality of videos. HD addressed that challenge, however, there are multiple others which have not been addressed by HD video conferencing.

The first one being that unlike in a face-to-face meeting, we see the miniature versions of people over videos.

The second is that the believability factor in a video conference is not very high because you do not get a good eye contact while talking to someone over video teleconference.

Moreover, during a group video teleconference, audio is combined from all the sources and delivered as a single entity. Thus, it is difficult to find out who is talking. So, it takes a few seconds to trace out the speaker on the basis of body movements.

The third challenge is that it is not user friendly because an IT administrator is required to make point-to-point calls. Moreover, there are other issues such as booking, scheduling, lighting etc. Thus the effectiveness of a video conference versus a face-to-face one is just 1:10.

The only thing that has been addressed so far is the quality of video. However, if the underlying network is not good enough, then even a good video conferencing system will not be very effective.

CIOL: So how is Business Octane addressing these issues?

Sanjay: We have two main offerings - Immersive and Ultra Immersive Telepresence - where you get a 7:10 and 10:10 effectiveness, respectively, in comparison to a face-to-face meeting. We have another offering known as Ultra Immersive Tele Allpresence solution.

A challenge with Immersive Telepresence is that it is very effective when done between two locations. However, the moment more locations are added, issues such as size of participants, eye contact,etc arise.

Whereas, Ultra Immersive TeleAllpresence solution allows up to 40 locations to be connected.

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CIOL: So far, how has been the response for this particular TeleAllpresence solution since its launch in May 2011?

Sanjay: The response is encouraging. We have a lot of prospects right now, especially from PSUs, IT  and ITeS segments.

These are capital purchases, so they need to be budgeted and planned. There are a whole lot of customers who are evaluating to buy this.

We are still in the process of acquiring customers. The customers will start coming in the new calender year, since there will be an evaluation period of six-nine months.

CIOL: How do you look at the competition from majors such as Cisco, Polycom? How do you differentiate yourself from them?

Sanjay: Business Octane has over 20 customers from India itself. As of TeleAllpresence, there is nothing in the market that can be compared with. Our Immersive technology is two to three times better than what Cisco brings to the table and that too at an attractive price point.

Moreover, this variety utilizes only half the bandwidth than Cisco's and is possible because of our codec.

CIOL: How do you see India as a market for telepresence?

Sanjay: India's video conference telepresence market will grow by over 40-50 per cent this year. Immersive will grow by 100 per cent, since it has got a very small base. India is one of the key markets where immersive telepresence is gaining traction.

Immersive telepresence is growing and the potential market is very large. It is still an infant market of $5 billion. It is expected to grow to 10-12 billion this year. Ultra Immersive TeleAllpresence is a new technology, so the traction is very less.

There is no reliable information that suggests our market share. 

CIOL: What is the future of this technology that you are looking for?

Sanjay: We have already reached the limit of what eyes can see and what ears can hear. What is next that is possible is 3D telepresence, however, it does not really add value because these are not consumer products, but business products.