Cisco Systems Inc. on Wednesday unveiled a system for its Internet-based telephones that promises to allow real-time videoconferencing with television-quality images for less than $200 per user.
Cisco, the world's largest maker of the gear that directs Internet traffic, said version 1.0 of the VT Advantage software ties together its Internet Protocol-based phones, a Web camera and a desktop or laptop PC to add video alongside calls.
The company has pushed aggressively into IP telephony, known as voice-over-IP or VoIP, which businesses have been looking to as a way to cut costs and inexpensively add new features like conferencing. Top Cisco executives have targeted it as a growth driver for the company.
"By just making a regular phone call, you can now have video as well without hitting a single additional button," Marthin De Beer, vice president and general manager of Cisco's IP communications group, told Reuters.
While most commercial video phones offer jerky and distorted images, and many professional video conferencing systems take extensive setup to use, Cisco said video on its platform would run at 30 frames per second and launch instantly whenever the callers had VT Advantage installed.
The newest version of the company's Call Manager server phone management software, De Beer said, would automatically recognize the link between computers with the video software and the users' phones, meaning the phone and the computer do not need to be directly linked together.
The software is also designed to work with traditional video conferencing systems from manufacturers like Tandberg and Polycom Inc., he said.
De Beer said the VT Advantage software was ready now and the company would begin to ship a Web camera in the next three weeks. Users install the software on their computer and then attach the camera.
The company said the new video system could be delivered to desktop users already on IP voice platforms for under $200 each, and De Beer said Cisco would pitch it to customers as a way to increase employee productivity.
"This capability gives them one more big reason to displace those old (phone) systems and move toward IP telephony," he said. "What we're announcing is just phase one. There will be many other products in the future."
