VSee Telehealth Beats Vidyo, Polycom, Cisco at ATA

Posted on May 10, 2013 by anne — No Comments ↓

VSee was a smashing success at this past weekend’s ATA show in Austin, TX. With a truly innovative approach to video conferencing, VSee telehealth completely stole the show from Polycom, Cisco, and Vidyo. The excited crowds kept the VSee team so busy throughout the entire conference that the team barely had time to grab a bite to eat, crashing on the ATA exhibit hall couches at the end of the day.

During the conference, several speakers gave great talks about the impact of VSee telehealth on their work. Dr. Stephen Minton, Chief of Neonatology at Utah Valley Medical Center and Director of Newborn Services for Intermountain Healthcare demonstrated their innovative use of VSee for their neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) renovation. Randy Robertson, disaster response and telemedicine specialist highlighted the importance VSee’s amazing low-bandwidth for his humanitarian relief work in developing countries.

VSee was also showcased in the booths of our partners, including InterMountain Healthcare (a 27-hospital network in Utah), CSI (a medical kiosk company), and Brighter Day Health (telepsychiatry and behavioral health).

InterMountain’s NICU using 3 Logitech 920 webcams, a Mac mini, and VSee

VSee telehealth Neonatal ICU (NICU)

The remote view of the NICU – note the camera placements for the 3 HD videos.

VSee’s software-only video conference is proving to be a perfect fit for telehealth. A simple, consumer-friendly video chat that requires no servers, works over spotty networks in rural areas, and streams faces and medical device images simultaneously, VSee is filling a gap in the telemedicine space for an easy medical video chat that lets doctors just be doctors without having to be IT.

CSI – medical kiosk

VSee captivating the ATA crowd

Struggling with Skype?

Is Cisco Umi Worth Rescuing?

Posted on January 25, 2013 by anne — No Comments ↓

Last week, video conferencing startup Tely Labs announced its “Rescue Umi” program as Cisco prepares to permanently end Umi services January 31. It’s an opportunity for Umi users to snag a good deal switching to Tely Labs’ similar telyHD offering. The marketing point of Umi and now telyHD is video conferencing on your HDTV without a PC — that is, telepresence right out of a box.

What killed Umi was its brow-raising price tag ($600) and ongoing subscription costs ($24.99 per month). This didn’t go over well with consumers, especially with cheaper, good quality, software-based video conferencing services popping up left and right. (Here are our reviews for a bunch of popular and alternative video conferencing services.)

TelyHD is trying not to make the same pricing mistake as Umi, but can such hardware approach make it in the end? The core VSee hypothesis is that video is only half the story; the other half is rich screen share that allows sharing photos, documents, slides, forms, etc. After all, this is how we work in real life. So even though VSee has great video, the VSee team is constantly thinking beyond just video :)

Cisco Umi Going ghe Way of the Neanderthal (VSee blog)
Cisco Scraps Cius in Favor of WebEx and Jabber (VSee blog)
Cisco Brings Jabber UC Features to Virtual Desktop World (eWeek)

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Cisco Scraps Cius in Favor of WebEx and Jabber

Posted on May 29, 2012 by anne — No Comments ↓

It’s no secret that room-based video conferencing and telepresence are dying breeds. The ever-declining revenue growth of Cisco’s Telepresence division as well as poor market performance by Cisco Telepresence competitors Polycom and LifeSize clearly attests to this.

However, Cisco isn’t waiting around for its cash cow to dry up before moving on to greener pastures. Aside from finally ditching their less than popular Umi unit late last December, Cisco is also giving up support for their Android-based Cius tablet which was designed to make visual communications easy for spread out enterprises.

Instead, Senior VP of Telepresence OJ Winge says on the Cisco blog that Cisco will focus on making its more popular collaboration software such as WebEx web conferencing and Jabber unified communication “available across a wide spectrum of operating systems, tablets and Smart Phones.”

It seems obvious to us now that scalable software-based collaboration is the way to go. As VC News Insights editor Keith Warburton noted in his “Telepresence Is Dead” editorial:

Given the choice between having a high quality visual communications installation that is nailed into the fabric of one executive’s office, or a lower cost system that can be very easily re-deployed without using a team of well-muscled experts, there’s little doubt which solution many discerning buyers would choose.

But I have to say it’s a bit maddening when all your short startup life you’ve had to bend over backwards to convince enterprises around you that they don’t need expensive Cisco video conferencing equipment and that your software-based model is the much better way to go. At least time is now justifying the VSee video collaboration model as businesses start to see the light.

BYOD kills Cisco’s Cius tablet (Information Age)
Cisco’s new video collaboration strategy (UK Computerworld)
End of Cisco’s Cius Adventure – Was It BYOD? (FierceEnterpriseCommunications)

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photo credit: Donna and Andrew via Flickr

VSee Your Secure Alternative to Cisco H.323/SIP

Posted on February 22, 2012 by anne — No Comments ↓

Security has always been a top priority with VSee. In fact, VSee was created and designed right from the start to ensure data security. Unlike the H.323/SIP systems such as Cisco, Polycom, LifeSize, etc. which have been getting attention lately for the security risks they may pose, VSee makes security fairly easy and convenient in an era when protecting private information is a big concern for everyone.

Check out Milton’s brief article explaining a few of the ways that VSee security works differently from legacy H.323/SIP videoconferencing systems. You can also read the comments of the H.323 Standards Committee Chair, Paul E. Jones, who graciously allowed us to publish his response to the article.

Cisco’s Umi Goes The Way of the Neanderthal

Posted on February 9, 2012 by anne — No Comments ↓

Although Cisco refuses to officially wave the white flag, it’s clear that it has given up on its three-piece home videoconferencing unit, the Stone Aged and overpriced Umi Telepresence kit, which is no longer being supported by its service centers. I mean who has a separate device and remote just for doing family video calls these days? Given that video calling services such as Skype, ooVoo, and of course, VSee lets you see your family for free with just a laptop and a $50 webcam, it’s no wonder the Umi, with its whopping price tag of $600 (or even $300) plus a $10 per month subscription, has gone the way of the cave man.

Meanwhile, VSee is blazing the way to low-bandwidth video calls over 3G/4G wireless networks, so you can get your family in HD even while they’re on their African safari dream vacation!

Sources:

Network World smelled Umi’s death last year

Business Insider gets unofficial Cisco confirmation of Umi’s demise

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photo credit (prehistoric tools from West Africa): gbaku via Flickr

Simple Video Conference and Screen Share

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