Tag Archives: video conferencing

Will Zoom’s New Enterprise Video Conference Hurt Blue Jeans and Vidyo?

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zoom video conference for businessZoom.us, the hottest new video conferencing company, is revealing its paid UMX (Unified Meeting Experience) offering for businesses. Zoom previously raised $3M in angel funding. It has also just raised $6M in series A funding, from some of the biggest names such as Qualcomm Ventures, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, and Cisco WebEx co-founder Subrah Iyar! With this video conference startup Dream Team – super smart, experienced leaders, and very nice guys, too — Zoom is looking to do great things!

[See Zoom Company Profile here]

Initially a free consumer offering, Zoom received a great review from Walt Mossberg’s AllThingsD column for its clear 15-person group video and screen share.  Now Zoom is limiting free video to 1-on-1 calls as it focuses on entering the enterprise space and the education sector.

David Maldow from the Telepresence Options Human Productivity Lab recently reviewed the new features and gives Zoom a hearty thumbs up. Some of the finer points David points out include multi-screen desktops (so video can be displayed on one screen while screen share content is displayed on another panel) and unlimited video recording.

However, the biggest selling point for Zoom is its full featured mobile support.  It also can accommodate 40 participants in a video conference unlike WebEx Meetings which supports 9 or ooVoo which supports 12.

Vidyo and Blue Jeans out of the picture?

Zoom architecture still uses servers in the cloud to to stream video, like Vidyo and Blue Jeans – two startups that have raised tons of money. (VSee is peer-to-peer and only uses a server for http tunneling if peer-to-peer connection is not possible).

However, Zoom also has significantly higher video performance than either Vidyo or Blue Jeans. It is unclear how these two earlier hot startups will compete with Zoom.  A great advantage of Zoom is that it has a simple pricing — $9.99 for businesses and enterprises, $0.99 for education — unlike Vidyo’s complicated pricing model.

How does VSee compare with Zoom?

A key unknown is how much users care about security.  Zoom streams video to its servers, which have full access to your conversations.  VSee, on the other hand, uses end-to-end encryption where your conversation is always private, confidential, and off-the-record.

Another unknown is how simple the user design needs to be.  VSee has a simpler user experience compared to Zoom for creative team work, telemedicine, and telehealth. How much will people care about a few extra clicks?

The final unknown is the importance of global collaboration with people in developing countries where Internet speed is just not that great.  VSee requires significantly less bandwidth than Zoom making it the ideal tool in developing countries (Africa, Middle East, Latin America) where we have lots of users.

As for Zoom’s education focus, VSee not only offers free group video for anyone, it also gives all students free screen sharing as well.  Why pay for Zoom if you can get it free with VSee?

Please give VSee a try and tell us what you think! :)

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Is Cisco Umi Worth Rescuing?

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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  :)

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Correction: Google Has Not Dropped Vidyo

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In an earlier article I had said that Google Hangouts had dropped Vidyo in favor of WebRTC. I made a mistake. Google Hangouts has NOT dropped Vidyo.  Moreover, Vidyo executives have contacted me to let me know that “Google has a great relationship with Vidyo”.  I have checked my sources and verified that Vidyo is indeed still part of Google. (It turns out it is rather complicated to figure out what Google is currently using for Hangouts and GoogleTalk.)

Will Google ever drop Vidyo?  It is hard not to get excited about what Google is doing with WebRTC.  Google spent $200M acquiring the building blocks – buying the company GIPS for audio and On2 for video.  Since these acquisitions, the Google WebRTC team has been growing like crazy – and is now one of the bigger engineering teams inside Google.

Future-looking innovative companies such as TokBox, TenHands, Twilio, meetings.io, and many others have also embraced WebRTC and are waiting to see what Google will do.

What do you think? Will Google eventually drop Vidyo and use WebRTC instead?  Is WebRTC ready?

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Young Entrepreneurs Love VSee!

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NUS iLEAD student entrepreneurs

Students from the National University of Singapore visit VSee – “V” for VSee!

Last week, a high spirited group of entrepreneuring students from the National University of Singapore (NUS) came to visit our office. As part of the NUS innovative Local Enterprise Achiever Development (iLEAD) program, they were on a trip to visit innovative companies around the world (like VSee) and be exposed to various startup cultures.

Milton, VSee CEO, shared with them how VSee was started and the thought processes that went into designing VSee to make it a simple and effective tool.

The students asked many insightful questions and gave us important feedback on our sign up process – overall a great session!  They were impressed with VSee’s simplicity for getting work done in comparison with Skype, Google+ Hangouts, and WebEx.  They were especially amused to learn that Google Venture’s chief designer wasn’t able to use Google Hangouts to do design work with his 100+ portfolio companies – since Google Hangouts is a great product, but not designed for creative people to get work done.

A second group of student entrepreneurs from China and Singapore also visited us on the same day as part of the Youth Entrepreneurship Alliance (YEA). YEA is an international non-profit organization established in 2009. It aims to promote entrepreneurship, leadership and business networking across different geographical districts worldwide.

One student, Lincoln, suggested we should take a group photo using the VSee video feed. This was the result!

YEA student entrepreneurs in a VSee call

A screen shot of YEA students in an HD VSee call

See how VSee is able to send 2 HD video streams for an immersive conference room experience.  VSee’s bandwidth requirements are so low, you can get 2 HD videos for the same bandwidth of a single HD video in Skype or Google Hangouts!

iLead student entrepreneurs pictured:

1 Chin Fushi Vanessa
2 Chng Yi An
3 Gregory Chew Bo Wen
4 Hong Chengfeng
5 Lau Xin Ling
6 Lee Mei Yi
7 Li Yilin
8 Naomi Tay Yi Lin
9 Ni Xiqin
10 Nicholas Ang Teck Choon
11 Nur Iman Izam Bin Othman
12 Paul Antonio
13 Quek Yuen Xian
14 Rahul Rajeev
15 Shambavi Krishnamurthi
16 Srinath Nalluri
17 Suvrata Mohapatra
18 Tang Weigang, Mark
19 Yang Kai Ting
20 Jacky Yap
21 Ritesh Angural
22 Joshua Lurdes Newman
23 Lee Tun Leng

YEA student entrepreneurs pictured:

1 Du Yijun
2 Ren RuiYun
3 Lai Laifeng
4 Royston
5 Liu Linkun
6 Jiang Haiyang
7 Zhai Lizhu
8 Swetha Narayanan
9 Shen Shen
10 Chen Deshun
11 Wang Runyu
12 Diao Jing Wen
13 Zhang Qi
14 Zhao Lingfeng
15 Liang Jiawei
16 Guo Chi
17 Wu Guoping
18 Song Yupeng
19 Luan Qi
20 Li Shuting
21 Lu Tianshu
22 Sheng Lu
23 Qian Chen
24 Alex Zuo Xiao

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New Study Shows Effectiveness of Virtual Doctor Visits

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With an aging population, the anticipated explosion of Obamacare patients, and an expected shortage of doctors, telemedicine and online health care could be the innovation that will save health care.  Through telemedicine, patients can have easy access to their doctors via emails, phone, video, or other devices. The question is whether online health care is as effective as seeing your doctor in person.

Scientifc American reported on a recent study in the Archives of Internal Medicine that suggests for certain routine illnesses “seeing” a doctor online could be just as effective as seeing a doctor in person.  In the study, patients with sinus issues and bladder infections were able to get a diagnosis simply by updating their medical profiles with a description of their symptoms and conditions. The only noticeable difference was a higher likelihood of getting antibiotics prescribed.

MobiHealthNews reported another study from the Journal of the American Medical Association.  It describes a successful weight loss program where patients regularly updated their weight, exercise habits, etc. via a mobile device. They would then be regularly coached over the phone based on this data. What makes this study interesting, according to its researchers, is that while other PDA studies have included “intensive in-person treatment sessions,” this study “demonstrates that a mobile intervention can be a substitute for expensive, in-person sessions.”

Do E-Visits Compromise Health Care?

While the number of online health care services are growing, some practitioners are still skeptical of its effectiveness.  Dr. Mohamad Sidani, professor at Meharry Medical College, is one doctor who is concerned about information that may be lost through phone and email.  He says the only way he would practice telemedicine is if the information were relayed to him by a nurse.  He emphasizes,

“face-to-face interaction is crucial for adequate diagnosis…. If it is over the phone, I won’t be able to see that patient’s face…. It can tell a lot about whether he is in severe pain or distressed or not. And the way he is moving. Body language is very important.”

Source: Dial-a-doctor, online services cut office visits - USA Today

Video conferencing would seem to be the logical solution.  Dr. Rakesh Khatri, Medical Director of the Stroke Care Now Network, has practiced telestroke in settings that were both equipped with video and those without. He notes that even though it may be more expedient to have information relayed to you by a nurse or doctor, with video,”you can actually talk to patient. It’s a more personal touch…you can look and connect. Sometimes when you are unsure of findings, seeing the patient lets you make surer decisions.”

With the potential to make health care more accessible and less expensive without sacrificing quality, online health care looks to have a bright future!

Learn about VSee Telemedicine and VSee HIPAA-compliancy.

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