See You on the Big Screen

Home Office Computing, June, 1999 by Richard Ashton, Alison Ashton

3 Real-World Users Reveal the Advantages of Business Videocoferencing

IN THE LATE STANLEY KUBRICK'S FILM of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Heywood Floyd places a "picturephone" call from an orbiting space station to his home on earth. Of course, the theme of 2001 is that technology is no panacea--as it happens, Floyd's wife isn't in and he has to leave an important message with his young daughter. On the positive side, the two-minute video call costs just $1.70.

Now, with less than two years to go, Kubrick's vision is proving prophetic. Videoconferencing is becoming more affordable--and making its way into more of our working lives as a result. And although being able to collaborate on computer and TV screens can be a key business advantage, it's not perfect; even the most advanced setups experience the occasional glitches.

But what do people with fully functioning video conferencing setups use them for? To find out, we asked three entrepreneurs and telecommuters to tell how they've tackled business problems via videophone. Whether it's conducted over phone lines, ISDN lines, or the Net, it turns out that videoconferencing is more than just a pretty face on a PC screen.

Making Meetings More Flexible

For several years, San Diego-based Dan Deakin and his far-flung colleagues at Harcourt Corp. conducted weekly meetings via the company's high-end PictureTel Concorde 4500 videoconferencing system. Although the system enabled Deakin, vice president of the publisher's Academic Press division, to make productive decisions without having to travel, he found it limiting because it worked only in the corporate conference rooms that had conferencing stations installed. Because Deakin and others at Harcourt often telecommute, they needed a more flexible solution.

They found it in PictureTel's Internet-based conferencing system, the PictureTel Live 200p (800-716-6000, www.picturetel.com; $1,200, including camera, PC video card, and software), which allows many users to join video roundtables right at their desktops. "We're now able to bring together a few people gathered in conference rooms, some home users, some at desktops within the office, and a couple of people listening in on the phone," Deakin said. "[Except for the voice-only participants, they can all] connect into our server and see everything--just like everyone else."

Although the equipment on workers' desktops resembles the under-$150 videophone kits now reaching the consumer market, Deakin admits Harcourt Brace had the resources to splurge on a dedicated videoconferencing server: "For about $30,000, a PictureTel 330 server will let you connect multipoint," allowing many simultaneous, far-flung participants rather than the two-way talk of a point-to-point conferencing system.

"Doing point-to-point is fine," he says, "but I don't think you get the real business advantage until you can do a virtual meeting, where you have four or five folks virtually sitting around the table communicating. Then you really get to rack up the savings by being able to make decisions quickly and easily without losing time on airplanes and adding stress to people's lives." Deakin estimates that with every avoided cross-country flight, the company can afford to pay for two desktop conferencing setups.

Getting everyone connected wasn't without its hiccups, however. The company's initial experience with Internet videoconferencing was hindered by poor sound quality and choppy transmission. Better software and equipment addressed that problem. "The LiveLAN setup actually has a card that will work both across Internet connections and dedicated ISDN lines [like those we had in place for the older Concorde system], and its sound quality is tremendous," Deakin explains.

Deakin's not surprised that Internet-based conferencing products--from inexpensive, two-way Webcams to corporate-oriented server systems--are rapidly claiming market share from traditional phone-line and ISDN devices: Although all three can reduce travel costs, Internet videoconferencing offers additional savings over traditional phone-line or ISDN videoconferencing because there are no special access costs beyond Internet service.

Deakin's best argument for Internet videoconferencing, he says, is that "our phone bills between Boston and St. Petersburg, Russia, easily top $3,000 a month." His biggest complaint? Although Net meetings can make global boundaries melt away, they can also involve working some odd hours.

Job Interviewing From Afar

What's an executive recruiter to do when many of his job candidates are halfway across the country? Rather than spend half his life on a plane, Ed Varela relies on videoconferencing--over plain old analog phone lines--to cut costs for his executive search company, the Alliance Group in Campbell, Calif.

With his ViaTV videophone (8x8 Inc., 888-VIEW-8X8, www.8x8.com/viatv; $399), Varela and his associates are successfully reining in their frequent-flyer mileage. "We conduct interviews and meet with people over relatively long distances rather than jumping on a plane and going to meet with someone face to face," he says.