The Web Conferencing Blog

Telepresence Market Opportunity

The Telepresence Global Markets team from Frost & Sullivan determined that the telepresence market generated $165.3M in revenues in 2007. That number is expected to exceed $1.44B in 2013.

Telepresence Demo

Telepresence Providers:

• Cisco
• HP Halo
• LifeSize.com
• Tandberg
• Microsoft Roundtable

In general, it's the larger enterprises with globally dispersed offices that are investing in telepresence. It will be interesting to see in the next 1-2 years how quickly telepresence will impact small businesses and even become popular at the consumer level.

Imagine if consumers had telepresence in their homes, connected to their HD TV's. Rather than calling my credit card company to complain about an unauthorized transaction, I could connect to a credit card representative over telepresence. I would be able to see the representative and explain my situation as if I was standing directly in front of him/her. If I needed to be transferred to a different department or if another representative wanted to assist with the situation, it could happen. The representative could even pull up my account to review the recent transactions and I could see this happening over my HD TV.

The power of telepresence.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Cisco Intends to Buy PostPath

Cisco announced that it plans to buy PostPath, a Linux-based email, calendaring, and collaboration solution. This move further signifies Cisco's commitment to creating a comprehensive cloud-based collaboration platform.

Ferris Research analyst Richi Jennings thinks Cisco made a great deal. Jennings says, "Once again, Cisco makes a sound investment in an email technology vendor, just like it did with IronPoint," an email security appliance provider.

As for PostPath, Jennings says, "These are the clever guys who reverse-engineered the Exchange client protocol, MAPI/RPC, and the related on-the-wire details needed to make a vanilla install of Outlook talk to a non-Exchange mail server with full fidelity. Impressive stuff. Of all the other Exchange alternatives, PostPath has the most interesting architecture. And I say that as one who has years emotionally invested in the OpenMail technology" -- which served as the foundation for Scalix.

Looking at the deal itself, Jennings opines, "I think Cisco fell out of love with Microsoft a while back. Something to do with VoIP support in Exchange and how Cisco thought it was Microsoft's partner but it turned out that Microsoft was competing with them. Nothing familiar there at all...."

As for what Cisco plans, Jennings says, "Sounds like Cisco wants to offer SaaS collaboration, based on PostPath and WebEx. Whoever said the email world has become dull and uninteresting?"

Cisco will pay approximately $215 million in exchange for PostPath's shares. The acquisition is expected to be completed in Cisco's first quarter of fiscal year 2009. Upon completion of the acquisition, PostPath employees will become part of the Cisco Collaboration Software Group.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Upcoming Cisco Acquisitions...

There is some speculation that Cisco (CSCO) is looking to make a few acquisitions in the very near future. Some think Cisco is targeting Brocade (BRCD) to thwart Brocade's own interest in acquiring Foundry Networks (FDRY) for $3B. By acquiring Brocade, Cisco would boost its storage networking portfolio and eliminate a competitive threat.

The timing is also good for Cisco as Brocade shares are down 12-15% since Brocade announced it would pay a 40% premium for Foundry Networks. The only obvious concern for Cisco is how the government will interpret Cisco's market share in the fibre channel switch space after a Brocade acquisition.

On the periphery, other analysts think Cisco might go after the data storage giant, EMC Corp (EMC). I personally think that waiting on this one would be a good idea. EMC has only been growing in single digits, probably not exactly what John Chambers is looking for in an acquisition. EMC also has a $30B market valuation, a buyout wouldn't come cheap to Cisco either. I'm not so sure if Cisco needs to buy the "size" of an EMC.

If Cisco does buy Brocade or some other "smaller" player in the fibre channel switching space, it will be a great compliment to the Cisco Nexus Switches product line which launched earlier this year.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

ITIL Standards for IT Services

When evaluating IT solutions like a systems management solution or case ticket tracking system, check to see if the solution has ITIL standards. ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) has become the standard framework of best practice approaches intended to facilitate the delivery of high quality IT services. ITIL outlines a set of management procedures that are intended to support businesses in achieving both financial quality and value in IT operations.

ITIL consists of 6 main sets:

- Service Support
- Service Delivery
- Planning to Implement Service Management
- ICT Infrastructure Management
- Applications Management
- The Business Perspective

ITIL is also recognized as an international standard, ISO IEC 20000.

A few systems management and case ticket tracking providers:
- Dell's Systems Management (EverDream)
- Parature ServiceDesk and Asset Management
- Computer Associates Unicenter ServiceDesk and Asset Management
- IBM (Tivoli): Service Management and Asset Management
- Symantec (Altiris) Service Desk, HelpDesk, Asset Management

Thanks
David Chao
The Web Conferecing Expert

Ribbit Telephony and Salesforce.com

Ribbit, an internet startup company that specilized in telephony services, has integrated its telephony solution with Salesforce.com's CRM application. With this integration, users can push voicemails from their cell phones into SFA and attach the voice mails to a specific customer record/opportunity/activity. Voice messages can be converted into text for greater efficiency compared to typing in notes. Voice messages can also be searched by keywords.

Customers can opt to use their own cell phone or make outbound calls within SFA via Ribbit's software-based phone. This provides flexibility to customers.

Ribbit is priced at $25 per user per month. This includes unlimited voice messaging, storage and inbound calls to the software-based phone, and five voice to text transciptions. Voice to text transcriptions is an additional $10 per user per month for 40 messages. Unlimited ouotbound calling in the US through Ribbit's online phone is $15 per user per month.

The Ribbit application is still in beta across some 70 different companies. Learn more about Amphibian by clicking on the "Watch the Amphilbian Video."

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Top Cisco Acquisitions

Last year Cisco made a big push to enter the Software as a Service (SaaS) market with the acquisition of WebEx for $3.2 billion dollars. Some analysts questioned the acquisition and others simply could not comprehend the premium Cisco paid to acquire WebEx.

Thus far, the acquisition has been a blessing for both companies and as it stands WebEx has put Cisco into a better position in terms of the Unified Communications front. "While we've done over 130 acquisitions, WebEx has a very realistic possibility of being in the top five, maybe even in the top two, in terms of long-term contribution to Cisco," said John Chambers, Cisco CEO. "WebEx has the capabilities to expand well beyond just enabling collaboration, to providing many things as a service to the environment, to embedding them deep into our products and to be a key differentiator for many our of customer and partners as well."

To date, Cisco has reduced its travel cost by 41% along with its Carbon Emissions footprint. WebEx usage has been so tremendous across Cisco that approximately 555 business days are literally being compressed into a single business day each and every day!

Other top Cisco acquisition contenders:
     - Linksys
     - Scientific Atlanta

Future acquisitions target??? Companies that are Web 2.0-based or deeply rooted in social networking could be an interesting play. Perhaps someone like Akamai for their web content optimization solutions. (I'm a personal share holder in Akamai (AKAM).

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Web-Based MSFT Office

It was only a matter of time until Microsoft entered the web-based applications space. In 2004 they acquired Placeware, now known as Live Meeting, as a small piece of their Unified Communications strategy. Though the web collaboration space has grown at a rate of 24%, Live Meeting has not faired as well.

Nevertheless, as Google has drawn a line in the sand with their Google Apps, Google Docs and Gmail, Microsoft has bolded made it clear that they are stepping over this line and competing directly with Google for greater "internet territory." (If you have not looked at Google Apps, I would highly recomend it. Quick, easy, simple to use. A great way to backup files.)

As of today, all consumers will be able to write, store, and edit documents in Microsoft Word and Excel directly onto the internet. Microsoft Office is one of their cash cows so this move is extremely aggressive but more importantly, it's a shift from the traditional software and server model to a subscription-based model. Even Microsoft Exchange will be offered as a monthly subscription, a huge change from companies having to shell out loads of money to buy servers to run enterprise email accounts. (Office 2007 and Vista equated to 56% of the company's revenue, which were $16.4B.)

The MSFT Office Live Workspace will compete directly against WebEx WorkSpace and others. (WebEx acquired Intranets.com, founded in 1999 by Rick Faulk, in August of 2005 for $45M.) Both applications enable users to store documents, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations online which can then be accessed from any computer with an internet connection. Files can be accesses as read-only or read-write with revisioning capacbilities. This creates a central document repository and minimizes information float and multiple revised documents typically circulating via email.

In the end, it's what I've said since day 1, the Software as a Service (SaaS) model is here to stay. We are seeing fundamental shifts in the all technology marketplaces and strategic acquisitions by large enterprises such as Cisco, Oracle, IBM, Google, Yahoo.

Yahoo bought Zimbra for $359M: directly competes with Exchange as a web-based solution
Cisco bought WebEx for $3.2B for web collaboration and ubified communications
Google bought Postini, an email filtering solution
IBM acquired Web Dialogs, a web conferencing provider, for an undisclosed amount

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

 

SAP or Oracle to Acquire Citrix?

Microsoft acquired Placeware, Cisco acquired WebEx, could we see SAP or Oracle go after Citrix? Like the other large enterprise software companies, SAP acquired Business Objects last year but still lacks a comprehensive and compelling web collaboration strategy. Citrix might be an interesting play for SAP.

On the flip side, Oracle sees the benefits of the Software as a Services (SaaS) model with their Oracle On-Demand CRM solution. It's one of the fastest growing product line for Oracle, mainly because of its quick implementation, minimal training, and low point of entry cost.

Both SAP and Oracle target large enterprise customers and with Citrix, SAP or Oracle would have a lead-in into the SMB market, a market segment with tremendous growth opportunities.

We'll have to wait things out and see where things end up but it could be an interesting move for either SAP or Oracle.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Telepresence for Consumers?

Cisco Telepresence is creating a tremendous buzz in the market as it is one of the fastest growing product segments across Cisco. There have also been whispers that some sort of joint partnership between Cisco and Apple may ensure to bring Teleprescence to consumer homes via AppleTV. Intriguing but I doubt this is something that will happen in the near-term. Perhaps by 2010, when Telepresence solutions, typically $150,000-$300,000, come down in price will we see Telepresence become mainstream as home-based solutions.

In the meantime, it might be more strategic for Cisco to focus on the Apple iPhone as I believe the iPhone is a powerful mobile device for unified communications (UC). Unified Communications is a #1 priority for Cisco and continues to compete for market share against IBM and Microsoft.

(Please reference www.thevarguy.com for more details.)

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Litescape: IP-Telephony Integration

Litescape, a developer of Unified Communications applications, is the only company that tightly integrates WebEx collaboration services with Cisco UC Manager and IP phones, as well as, Avaya IP telephony systems to dramatically simplify collaboration processes.

"The challenges of integrating multiple business and communications applications are slowing enterprise adoption of unified communications," states Nora Freedman, Senior Research Analyst, Enterprise Networking at IDC. "Solutions that can ease the hurdles between tying formerly independent applications into a single user experience will accelerate this market."

With Litescape Oncast, users can schedule or join meetings instantly from their desktop, Microsoft Outlook or Cisco IP phone. When it's time to join a meeting, Oncast automatically dials and validates a user with the appropriate audio conferencing bridge using their Cisco IP phone. At the same time, Oncast launches a web browser on the user's PC and automatically joins the web collaboration portion of the conference.

With Litescape Oncast, companies can bridge the gaps between corporate data, collaboration tools, desktop PC's and Cisco IP phones to create a seamless communications experience. Oncast can integrate a company's Cisco UC Manager with Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Outlook/Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes, Salesforce.com and WebEx.

As more and more companies create IT standardizations and/or create a centralized infrastructure platform from which a majority of disparate IT assets and applications are tied to, the Litescape Oncast value proposition: WebEx and Cisco IP phone integration, becomes even more compelling.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert