News & Viewson Unified Communications & Collaboration

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Volume 14 Issue #25 11-December-13

Adobe Tunes Layouts & Logins with Connect 9.2

Adding to the Adobe Connect Mobile announcements we discussed in our last issue (Volume 14 #24), this week Adobe announced Adobe Connect 9.2, an update that focuses on simplified, social webinar access (registration using social profiles), productivity and ease of use (espe-cially in the area of simplified first meeting experience), and video pod improvements. Connect 9 already features an Events module that lets customers register users for webinars using microsites and registration pages. Added now in 9.2 is the ability to integrate Facebook and Google+ social profiles as an option for registering for an event and logging into that event. Event hosts can still ask registra-tion questions but certain fields are pre-populated. On the meeting creation front, Adobe has simpli-fied the workflow from email to meeting room creation. Users can im-mediately create a name and custom URL for a meeting room, thus enhancing meeting persistency. That same meeting room and associated URL and content can be reused ad hoc over and over without scheduling. Finally, on the video conferencing front, Adobe has added a new filmstrip mode, whereby a host can select an individual feed to showcase in a large panel from a set of connected webcam feeds provided in filmstrip mode. Connect does not limit the number of users who can share video, so a grid view showing all video participants continues to be available. The option exists to take either of those modes full-screen — which hides the camera pod title bar — for a more immersive video conferencing experience.

Alan D. Greenberg, agreenberg@wainhouse.com

Two ways to view Adobe Connect video: filmstrip view (top) and grid view (bottom)

This is an incremental set of improvements, but it shows that Adobe is paying attention to some things it needed to attend to (video) and some things it has always done well (engineering workflow).

What Alan thinks: With just a few features being an-nounced, this is an incremental set of improvements, but it shows that Adobe is paying attention to some things it needed to attend to (video) and some things it has always done well (engineering workflow). The video quality is improving — this may be (I hope) the last time WR says that Adobe was known for lagging behind some of its competitors. At 20 fps you won’t be blown away by the motion handling but at 480p, 640 x 480 for a basic web-cam view and widescreen view at 833 x 480, the quality will be sufficient for most applications. (The filmstrip views are 120p, plenty sufficient for thumbnail views.)

ers. Thus it was with a mix of curiosity in the format and interest in the content that we accepted Avaya’s invita-tion to the analyst community to attend its Virtual Partner Forum, held this week online. What Avaya did was not unlike what we’ve done with our two Virtual Summits this year: replay pre-recorded content while having vendors / partners and specialized functional teams participate in a live event. In its case Avaya took a pre-recorded Executive Partner Forum that took place mid-November in Cancun, Mexico, and mixed the talks from that event with exhibit booths (33 in their DevConnect and Avaya Exhibit Halls), streaming videos, some live and on demand sessions, and canned reports and product information. Kickoffs were held in APAC, EMEA, and the Americas this past Monday, with hundreds attending those sessions and quite a few more visiting the overall event.

What I think: I’m calling fall 2013 the Channel channel. We’ve seen some manufacturers doing a brilliant job of engaging with their channels, and others struggling to fix things because it’s so easy to take your eye off of the belle that got you to the ball.

Vendors are still experimenting with how to engage with their channels. A few years ago the idea of virtual events was hyped, but even sophisticated, experienced users

(and resellers of ) collaborative technologies did not ap-pear to be ready to embrace them. Part of the issue was that marketers did not yet understand how to use the medium for soft-touch, informational marketing. That was then, this is now.

What’s effective about taking a brick-and-mortar event and mixing it with other content online is that you can reach many more partners (or markets as it were) and — if done intelligently — communicate what needs to get communicated quickly and efficiently. This coincidentally

Adobe is especially proud that on the mobile side, Con-nect Mobile now recognizes high-dpi screens (like the Retina) and scales the UI appropriately — see the picture with the Galaxy Note 3.

Everybody is getting into “social registration.” The theory is that by eliminating the need to gather addition log-in credentials, event registration (ergo events themselves) will be stickier for users while event planners will get more accurate attendee information. Some users will like the convenience; others will decidedly not want to disseminate their social data in this way.

Finally, we have long appreciated the concept and practice of persistent meeting rooms, another traditional strength of Adobe’s. It’s not just the trainers and educators we track who find value and efficiencies. It’s also teams working on content together, which can turn a persistent meeting room into a poor man’s team workspace. So improving how meeting organizers create persistent meeting rooms is a good thing.

Avaya Virtual Partner Forum Alan D. Greenberg

Several WR analysts have been spending a lot of time lately conducting interviews and surveys of channel partners for some of the big vendors and service provid-

Adobe’s Peter Ryce seen in Connect’s new filmstrip view while showing off his Galaxy Note 3 — also logged into our session

using Connect Mobile

Richard Steranka, VP Avaya Global Channels, Online Replay

PAGE 2Volume 14 Issue #25 / 11-December-13

• Up-and-comer FuzeBox and Internet2 are partnering to add FuzeBox to Internet2’s NET+ program. This is a special buying agreement that gives Internet2 high-speed network members access to tested and approved cloud solutions — as the organization puts it, “members collectively identify and vet community and industry cloud solutions that are (or could be) effective in meeting campus challenges, and have the potential to scale to benefit all member institutions’ teaching, learning and research needs.” FuzeBox is the first provider of video conferencing and collaboration services to achieve the NET+ Early Adopter status (the result of a rigorous evaluation process by research universities that allows Internet2 members to access all of FuzeBox services over the high performance Internet2 Network and under a national agreement with a special member rate). FuzeBox can be used via a web browser or through FuzeBox client applications on Windows, Mac and Linux devices, iPad and Android tablets and iOS and Android smart phones.

• TrueConf has added support for full HD video conferencing and PTZ camera control to its TrueConf Terminal 1.3.0. Additionally, two new hardware configurations have been introduced for larger conferencing rooms. In addition to the webcam they

leaves a bit of a “self-serve” aspect to the attendee so that he/she does not feel overwhelmed by TMI (too much information).

What did I learn? Avaya’s VP of Global Channels, Richard Steranka, said they are seeing their biggest IT spend in three years and it appears to Avaya that 2014 is going to be a breakout year. The RADVISION unit is showing sig-nificant growth in selected theatres, as is the UC platform (41% overall), while IP office growing at 13% a year. And — like so many of the technologies we all love to play with around here — sometimes it’s all about the tim-ing. The custom environment Avaya utilized was far and away one of the best implementations of the concept of a virtual event we’ve seen in a while.

News in Brief• Atlanta-based PGi is extending its global march with

the acquisition of Powwownow for $52.6 million, announced just two months after announcing ACT Conferencing was acquired for $44 million. PGi believes that London-based Powwownow’s 240,000 enterprise customers — mostly based in the UK, France, and Germany — will make it the second-largest conferencing service provider in Europe.

PAGE 3Volume 14 Issue #25 / 11-December-13

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Cloud video conferencing & calling

The integration with Google cloud services is meant to support simpler, cost-effective deployments and better help schools deal with heterogeneous devices and operating systems. And one recent estimate is that 58% of the education sector has adopted at least one product from Google Apps.

• Meanwhile, we hear an echo echo echo. SMART’s arch-nemesis in education markets, Promethean, announced ClassFlow, a cloud-based classroom orchestration tool that enables teachers to create lessons, deliver interactive content across multiple devices, and assess student understanding. ClassFlow lets teachers build and access interactive lesson plans from any web browser. In addition, ClassFlow allows educators to foster student engagement by connecting mobile devices such as educational tablets, smartphones, and laptops to classroom displays and interactive whiteboards.

• Sonic Foundry has gone shopping internationally by investing in companies it presumably already knew well. Just recently it announced the acquisition of two channel partners in different parts of the world: MediaMission, a Netherlands-based enterprise streaming company, and Mediasite K.K., a Japanese enterprise video company. The cost is $1.1 million for MediaMission and $5.85 million for Mediasite K.K., a firm in which Sonic Foundry already held limited, minority ownership interest. Sonic Foundry reported a 43% growth in billings in Japan and a 25% growth in international billings overall in fiscal year 2013.

originally received with TrueConf Terminal, existing customers now can choose either an SD or Full HD PTZ camera. All future installations will include a new 10-capacitive touch screen, which replaces the 8-resistive panel used previously. And staying busy, TrueConf has introduced a directory service designed for customers with large, distributed video conferencing infrastructure environments.

• Carousel Industries, Polycom and NuPhysicia last week announced a partnership to deliver a bundled Telehealth offering called DistribuCare, which combines Carousel’s healthcare integration expertise, NuPhysicia’s caseload management software expertise, and Polycom’s video solutions, enabling doctors and nurses to more easily and quickly meet with patients across the globe. The service is meant to make it easier for healthcare professionals to coordinate care when initiating a video-based telehealth service within a hospital, urgent care facility, retail pharmacy, or an employee healthcare network.

• IVCi has introduced its Cloud Video Experience (CVE), a new service that provides an end-to-end cloud-based Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for its customers. CVE consists of a suite of services that enable video conferencing for both room based systems as well as personal devices such as laptops and tablets. In addition, Virtual Meeting Rooms allow multiple participants to meet face to face. These rooms provide connectivity to all standards-based video conferencing systems, and interoperate with Microsoft Lync and WebRTC.

• In one of the first indicators of how SMART Technologies plans to bring its recently announced SMART amp collaborative learning software to market, SMART has said it has aligned with Google to deliver a comprehensive software solution for education that brings people, student devices, and learning environments together. SMART amp will be hosted on the Google cloud and take advantage of Google’s newest cloud services. The goal is for SMART amp to be as they put it “the ‘glue’ that connects interactive displays, PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones while enabling teachers and students to collaborate in real time, do in-class assessment, connect to shared digital workspaces, and interact with Web-based learning materials regardless of location or device.”

Upcoming WR Speaking Appearances & EventsWhen & Where Who & What

17 December, 2013 1 PM ET, Online

Steve Vonder Haar, Wainhouse Research and Brad Hunstable, Ustream, Executive Visions of Video in the Workplace

10 January, 2014 11 AM ET, Online

WR Analyst Team—Insight 2014: The Year Ahead in Video, Collaboration and Unified Communications

15-16 July, 2014 Santa Clara, CA

Wainhouse Research UC&C Summit – Save the Date!

Industry Events of NoteWhen & Where Who & What

17-20 March, 2014, Orlando, FL, USA

Enterprise Connect, Gaylord Palms Convention Center

6-10 April, 2014, Denver, CO, USA

2014 Internet2 Annual Meeting

PAGE 4Volume 14 Issue #25 / 11-December-13

• RHUB Communications has announced a new PBX integration module that links the company’s web conferencing appliances and services with a user’s PBX system and audio conferencing provided by either or a third-party CSP or RHUB. (RHUB offers free and toll-free audio conferencing services — attendees can join a session using either a PC headset or a PSTN phone). The new PBX integration module allows attendees to join an audio conferencing session by dialing a PBX extension, dialing a domestic telephone number in 27 countries, or using a PC and headset. The PBX integration helps to avoid long distance call charges, expands the PBX’s conferencing capacity to hundreds and even thousands of attendees, and adds integrated web conferencing capability. The PBX integration should also appeal to CSP’s that want to OEM a web conferencing solution with integrated audio conferencing.

• While we’re talking audio, Lindenbaum announced recently a competitive upgrade for carriers and CSP’s, with a hardware trade-in option for conference bridges from any other manufacturer. This trade-in offer is valid with a purchase order through March 31, 2014.

• Barco introduced recently the new CSM Base Unit for its ClickShare collaboration and presentation system. ClickShare now comes in two flavors — the new CSM Base Unit and the original CSC Base Unit. The new CSM Base Unit offers the core ClickShare experience at a price of 1750 Euros/$2,400 US. The new CSM Base Unit displays images up to Full HD resolution — via HDMI or VGA output — and is fully compatible with

both the ClickShare Button and the free apps for iOS and Android. Only one user can share on-screen at a time, but eight Buttons can be connected wirelessly to the base unit, ready to share. A set consists of the CSM Base Unit and two ClickShare Buttons. Customers seeking higher resolution or a double screen setup, or want multiple users on the central screen at the same time, can choose to go with the more pricey, current CSC Base Unit.

• Flip has finally flipped out of existence. Some of us who own the much-loved Flip video cameras Cisco bought and then put into a timely or early grave (depending on who is talking) back in April 2011 have received notifications that the FlipShare service is ending on December 31 of this month. This is not new news, it’s just finally happening. Cisco is referring its FlipShare users to Givit.

People & Places Know someone in the industry who changed jobs? Jump into a new role yourself as vendor, end user, or channel partner? Email us at wrb@wainhouse.com to share the good news.

• Carousel Industries, Terence Fogarty, Contact Center Solution Consultant – Strategic Accounts

• Internet2, Steven Zoppi, Associate Vice President, Services Integration and Architecture

• PGi, Gary Iles, Global Vice President of Video Collaboration Services

• Polycom, Peter Leav, President and CEO

• Saba, Charles Denault, Senior Director Product Marketing

Steven Zoppi, Internet2

Peter Leav, Polycom

Gary Iles, PGi

Charles Denault, Saba

ClickShare CSM in educational environment

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• Sonus, Tony Scarfo, Executive VP of Technology and Business Development

• Unify, Dean Douglas, CEO

• VBrick Systems, Darian Germain, Vice President of Marketing

• Whitlock, Julian Philips, Executive VP; Jack Steinhauer, Executive VP, Chris Jamison, VP of IT and Service Delivery

White Paper and Webinar on Online Video More than three quarters of corporate executives perceive online video as an effective vehicle for business communications, according to a report released this week by Wainhouse Research. The white paper, titled “Executive Visions on Video in the Workplace” and commissioned by Ustream, draws upon a Wainhouse Research Enterprise Web Communications Survey of 1,007 executives fielded in the fourth quarter of 2013. The study can be downloaded for free at www.wainhouse.com/whitepapers.

Results from the survey reported in this white paper also show an executive affinity for live video. More than 70% of executives surveyed cited a preference for live video when compared with on-demand streaming alternatives.

White paper author and Wainhouse Research Senior Analyst Steve Vonder Haar will be appearing in a live video webinar to be held at 1 p.m. ET December 17 to discuss survey findings in more detail with Ustream Chief Executive Officer Brad Hunstable. Register to attend the free event.

Buncha WR Analysts, One Webinar, One Newsletter Early JanuaryWill we all get to talk? WR analysts will be working double-time this New Year’s, providing their predictions on key market developments to watch for in 2014. Look to the next edition of the Bulletin in early January for us to grade ourselves on our predictions of 2013. In that same issue we’ll make our next round of predictions for 2014. And in a special, first-time, crystal-ball webinar that same week called “Insight 2014: The Year Ahead in Video, Collaboration and Unified Communications” — we’ll individually recap our predictions from a year ago while also giving you a new take on what to watch for in the year ahead. Join us at 11 a.m. ET on Jan. 10 as we’ll feature a virtual roundtable of analysts sharing their thoughts — and answering your questions — on the key topics likely to be making industry news over the course of the next 12 months.

Register to attend this free live event.

Tony Scarfo, Sonus

Dean Douglas, Unify

Darian Germain, VBrick Systems

Brad Hunstable, Ustream

Executive Visions on Video in the Workplace

Copyright © 2012 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 1

WHITE PAPER

Executive Visions on Video in the Workplace

Steve Vonder Haar

December 2013 White Paper commissioned by:

Want More Conferencing & Collaboration?We invite you to create your own free account on our new Wainhouse Research Content Portal. Based on your personal preferences, receive daily or weekly industry news and notification of free and premium content (the latter if your organization has a WR subscription) via email. You can also search our full content archives — including WR Bulletin issues.

Create your account here: http://cp.wainhouse.com/registration

PAGE 6Volume 14 Issue #25 / 11-December-13

WR: Fair enough, but how has that panned out? Have you cleared the launch tower yet?

ML: I’m happy to say that it has panned out very well and we are in a great competitive position. It has taken us some time but the launch tower is now a long way behind us. The number of StarLeaf customers and their usage is growing rapidly.

WR: What would you describe as StarLeaf’s technical distinctive competence or major customer benefit today?

ML: Ease of deployment, ease of use and ease of management. A workgroup spread across a region, country, or globe can be set up to collaborate securely in 10 minutes. Where a software client isn’t good enough, in a meeting room for instance, a hardware endpoint can be shipped to any remote location, or someone’s home, and set up within minutes by a non-technical person. All users, clients, systems, directories and conferences can be fully monitored and managed by our partners, or even

the customers themselves, using a simple web portal.

Achieving this was by no means easy. It has taken a huge amount of work, and significant investment in points of presence in data centers across the globe. We are in a very strong position, having built the solution from the ground up, which means we have full control and can react quickly to evolving customer needs.

WR: Tell us about the strategic thinking that went behind the launch of your service. It’s rather unusual, isn’t it, since it requires the customer to buy endpoints? And aren’t the endpoints useless without the service (kind of like my Verizon cell phone)?

Andrew recently caught up with Mark Loney, StarLeaf’s CEO. Mark’s past employment consists of a who’s who of majors and minors: TANDBERG,

Codian, Cisco, Calista, Demios, and even an early role at Madge Networks. WR: I remember when you first came out of stealth mode about two years ago, you introduced a complete video conferencing system and more. So, you decided to compete against just about everyone exhibiting at an industry trade show. How has that panned out?

ML: We started up with a bold vision for the system we wanted to create. Only by being bold would we be able to solve the perennial problems of video collaboration — complexity and cost — that, as I’m sure we all agree, inhibit usage, and therefore return on investment. As a consequence that puts us head-to-head with many organizations. That’s just fine and it’s not for the first time in our careers.

Innovation and agility count for so much. The big established manufacturers struggle to move fast enough, especially during major market transitions such as the current one with the move to collaboration as a service delivered and managed from the cloud.

One aspect that distinguishes StarLeaf is the breadth of our solution, not just conferencing ports or virtual meeting rooms, but also hardware and software endpoints, and the intelligence in our back-end servers to tie everything together seamlessly and to interoperate with everything else out there.

It has taken a huge amount of work, and significant investment in points of presence in data centers across the globe. We are in a very strong position, having built the solution from the ground up, which means we have full control and can react quickly to evolving customer needs.

1:1 Mark Loney, CEO, StarLeafAndrew W. Davis, andrewwd@wainhouse.com

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ML: In the early days of StarLeaf we talked to many customers looking to scale up their use of video collaboration. They told us that they were very reluctant to continue buying more and more complex and expensive infrastructure. The logical conclusion was for us to deliver that functionality as a service from the cloud. It seemed another bold decision to move to a 100% services model, but over time this has proven to be a good decision. We are in the great position of not having a legacy of on-premises infrastructure, and its associated revenue stream to support and protect, which will always cause conflict and compromise. We are focused entirely on our services and the benefits to our users.

As I mentioned earlier, one distinctive aspect of the StarLeaf solution is its breadth. Our video conferencing and calling service does not require StarLeaf hardware endpoints. Of course you get even more value from the service if do have StarLeaf hardware endpoints, but you can use software clients or any H.323 or SIP video endpoints. What we find in practice is that potential customers carefully consider our offer against offers from other manufacturers and in the main, choose StarLeaf as there are so many benefits, and these outweigh any concern about the upfront cost of our hardware endpoints.

WR: What is StarLeaf’s go-to-market strategy. Who are your major GTM partners today?

ML: We are channel friendly and all of our sales go through our channel partners around the world. We have handpicked distributors and resellers that offer great customer service and that believe the future of video conferencing is in the cloud.

To name a few, we are working closely with Visitec in the US, VITEC Distribution in Germany, Tempura Communications in the UK, Solutors in Denmark, Kavena in Sweden, Dekom in several European countries, Dynamic Communications in Southern Africa, MediaPlus in Japan and FaceToFace Communications in Australia and New Zealand.

WR: You recently introduced the StarLeaf GT Mini range of room systems, which start at $2,000 for the codec, an HD webcam, a StarLeaf phone / controller, and a microphone. Are your channel partners excited about selling such low-cost systems?

ML: Yes! Such an affordable, functional, high quality room system is an enabler, on two counts. Firstly, it can be used to gain new customers for whom video collaboration has been out of reach and, secondly, it provides channel partners an opportunity to go back to their existing customers to discuss scaling up their video deployments.

WR: What do you think are the major challenges facing StarLeaf over the next two years?

ML: Our biggest challenge is increasing the awareness of StarLeaf, and getting it in front of organizations considering a new video collaboration solution, or scaling their existing system. The market is very crowded, especially with the pure conferencing offerings, and there is a lot of noise through which to be heard.

The second challenge is posed by the cloud model itself. The cloud enables us to give our customers a stream of new features — typically every 6 to 8 weeks — which is great. To achieve this we have had to create a purpose-built network of interconnected servers in our datacenters across the globe.

WR: Are customers worried about buying communications equipment from a small, privately held company. Is this an obstacle?

ML: Being a startup is always a challenge! To win our customers we have to show that we are many times better than the competition, not just a bit better. We are managing to do this — the usage of our cloud has more than doubled from the first half of 2013 to the second half and will be 1 million minutes a month at the end of the year. The future of enterprise communications is an integrated, cloud-based solution, and that is what we are here to provide.

Have friends? Want to make more friends? Forward this issue of the WR Bulletin and encourage them to read it and subscribe. Anyone can sign up for a free subscription at www.wainhouse.com/mail.

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© 2013 Wainhouse Research34 Duck Hill Terrace, Duxbury, MA 02332 USA Tel +1 617.500.8090

Editor: Alan D. Greenberg: agreenberg@wainhouse.comComments and PR news to: wrb@wainhouse.com

Feel free to forward this newsletter to colleagues. Free subscriptions: www.wainhouse.com/bulletin

New Studies from Wainhouse ResearchFor information on WR studies and subscriptions, visit www.wainhouse.com or contact sales@wainhouse.com

4Unified Communications

Arkadin Audio Conferencing for Microsoft Lync An Overview of Arkadin Collaboration Services’ Lync Audio Conferencing Integration

Cisco Video Conferencing Information and insight into a networking and communications giant’s video conferencing product offerings

4Distance Education & e-LearningMano a Mano: Web Conferencing Versus Lecture CapturePanel discussion at WCET Conference in Denver, November 2013

Vendor Profile — BloomfireProfile and analysis of Bloomfire’s social intranet / e-Learning / sales enablement platform

4Audio Conferencing

Arkadin Audio Conferencing for Microsoft Lync An Overview of Arkadin Collaboration Services’ Lync Audio Conferencing Integration

Conferencing Service Provider Statistics (SpotCheck) – Q3 2013Calendar Year Q3 2013 (July > September)

4Video Conferencing

Cisco Video Conferencing Information and insight into a networking and communications giant’s video conferencing product offerings

Video Conferencing Industry Statistics (SpotCheck) – Q3 2013Quarterly report providing statistics on video conferencing sales revenue, units, and market share

4Streaming & Webcasting

Market Forecast — 2013 Enterprise Streaming Solutions Market Sizing & 5-Year Forecast2012 market sizing with five-year forecast .

UstreamHosted Live Video Service Shifts Focus to the Enterprise

4Personal & Web-Based Conferencing

Avaya’s Web Collaboration SolutionsProfile and analysis of Avaya and its web collaboration offerings.

Web Conferencing Offerings An in-depth comparison matrix of ~175 specific features as implemented across 31 web conferencing offerings supplied by 28 leading vendors.

PAGE 9Volume 14 Issue #25 / 11-December-13