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Sony and GlowPoint have banded together to offer a video over IP-based videoconferencing system that emphasizes the hardware strength of Sony and the networking expertise of GlowPoint. Digital Media Net?s Charlie White talked with Eric Murphy, Sony?s Vice President of Conferencing Solutions, and GlowPoint President and CEO David Trachtenberg about this new service. While currently aiming this high-quality videoconferencing system at corporate customers, the two companies have an eye on expanding the service into the consumer market. Featuring an ?All You Can See? pricing plan, the companies described the product as the next step in the evolution of videoconferencing.
DMN: Tell me about the deal that Sony and GlowPoint have put together. What brought this about?
Murphy: For some time now, GlowPoint has been brewing different mixes of good stuff. We were fortunate enough to recognize what we thought would be some complementary services to our hardware products. I think everybody in the industry is constantly on a quest to make this stuff easier, and we believe a combination of our products with the GlowPoint service, which includes operator directory assistance and video mail, provides us with a unique opportunity to combine the best of each of our organizations, and take that to market in a slightly different fashion that has been done before.
DMN: You mentioned doing this in a different fashion that has been done before, but the way it was done before ? that?s what has kept this thing from becoming extremely popular, isn?t it?
Murphy: I?m not sure that?s the particular reason. I think you could debate any number of reasons why it hasn?t exploded to what people think it should be, and you could argue just as well that it?s been growing at the pace that it probably should. I think one of the misconceptions is that this is a revolutionary technology. I think once you have a chance to assess it and understand what it really does and how it works, it?s really evolutionary, and people are adopting it based on platforms becoming more powerful, based on networks proliferating both throughout our homes and places of work. Things are happening now that weren?t happening four, five or six years ago, that make the technology easier to use and make the network more dependable. To accept it into our everyday lives is something that is less revolutionary than we once thought it was. It?s more evolutionary with regard to the communication element it provides for us.
Trachtenberg: I agree with Eric, and we?re not in the same room so we can?t kick each other under the table [they laugh], but I will say that what is revolutionary is the way our customers are actually using video communications today. One of the things that brought us together with Sony is that we have found a partner with whom we can change the way video has been taken to market. We?re not bringing ISDN to the market because it?s been a little bit of a hangover to the marketplace. Using copper wire to do video conferencing has really limited customers? abilities. So we are try to do is, one, let users have a positive experience and two, to use it outside of anything other than what people would traditionally think of as videoconferencing.
DMN: I am familiar with the fact that there have been problems with frame rate as well as with quality.
Trachtenberg: Absolutely. So it?s different when you move to an IP-based environment, which is what GlowPoint is. Both Sony and GlowPoint are fully aligned with getting out of the conference room and taking video communications where it?s going to become an integral part of the way people communicate, and that?s literally moving from the conference room to the desktop in an office environment. In addition to that, I?m talking about literally getting out of the four walls of the office building. What is most interesting is how GlowPoint and Sony will be working together to really leverage the innovative ways our customers are using it today, like in the broadcast field. Nobody would have ever thought that videoconferencing or video communications would be used to do live broadcasts on ESPN for the NFL draft, as an example, or to be able to carry 6 ½ days worth of video with just one video call between the Democratic National Convention in Boston to a major network studio in New York. This was content creation using traditional video communications and traditional video hardware, but it was over a network that?s able to take advantage of all the wonderful things that Sony builds into their hardware. It actually expands people?s traditional use of video to do things that are very important and critical in broadcasting and other fields.
DMN: So you?re talking about the scalability of video over IP, but for this particular partnership, are we talking about more of a consumer-level product were Sony would provide the box and GlowPoint would provide the connectivity?
Trachtenberg: I think there are a couple of things going on here. What we are initially attacking together is still the business market. We are both in this for the long haul. There are a number of different offshoots that would make sense working together, but our vision right now is to leverage our presence in our brands and our partners within the business environment to really move it from the conference room to the desktop and beyond. We know that every businessperson is a consumer, and so as you move out of the conference room and it becomes much more of a one-on-one experience with video services, that?s where our services and Sony?s branded products really come into play. What?s different about this relationship is the fact that we will be creating a Sony version of GlowPoint services. We have created an environment where it is as easy as making a telephone call but with that power of face-to-face communication. I don?t want to speak for Eric and Sony, but I think one of the things that excited them and attracted them to GlowPoint is the fact that we?ve actually really taken the experience of business people ? they?re used to doing their communication through the telephone ? and have harnessed the power of video and translated those features into our world. You dial 000 from a Sony video unit that?s on GlowPoint, and you?re going to get a Sony live video operator that gives you directory assistance, they can connect you to another number, they can really demystify the video experience. I go into your office and you call somebody who?s on the Sony version of GlowPoint, and if they?re not there, you?re going to get their video mailbox that will pop up on their screen and say ?I?m not at my desk right now but if you want to leave a message??. You?re going to leave a message and they?re going to get that message where they are, because they?re going to get an e-mail that says they have a video message, they?re going to see a JPEG of who left the message, and over the native Internet be able to see that streamed. It literally is unleashing the power of video in an environment that people are used to, the telephony environment, and transporting it into the video world.
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