Video conferencing specialist eVideo Communications has opened its first telepresence suite on the Gold Coast, the first of many the company hopes will sprout this year.
Describing the event as a "soft launch" in preparation for a formal one after CeBIT in May, eVideo director Tom Morgan said he chose Southport because it was among Australia's most rapidly growing areas and a booming commercial hub.
"We chose to get into Gold Coast because it's growing and we feel Southport will be an important centre," Morgan said.
The company plans to attract tourism clients and others moving to capitalise on growth in the area and who need high-definition video conferencing services.
Morgan said the standards-based Lifesize technology allowed for easier interaction with other video conferencing providers. As a result of its cheaper price and greater flexibility the reseller is winning deals for the Texas video conferencing startup bought last year by Logitech from major players such as Cisco, he said.
"We're a third the price and because its standards-based you can talk to another video system [for instance, Tandberg] and if you're talking to another Lifesize you can have three screens," Morgan said.
In February, Cisco opened its first Australian telepresence suite at the Sheraton in Sydney and ISP Internode bought a $500,000 Cisco telepresence suite last July. Morgan said Lifesize's chief advantage was its ability to link telepresence systems from third-party suppliers.
The reseller will launch its e-connect service in May that bridges video from third parties, opening the realm to a wider range of participants, he said.
Morgan was also looking to partner with other resellers who don't have the necessary certification but wanted to offer such services to their customers.
And he said a big task for the company was re-educating users about telepresence.
"We're going to be doing a lot of PR in the Gold Coast," he said. "If you're conventional in this industry you won't go far but a lot of the industry at the moment is changing [and finding] that video conferencing is becoming a must-have product.
"People have had fuzzy ISDN video and now it's all HighDef."
But penetration of the technology will lag until Australia gets a fast, affordable, low-latency broadband network: "The videophone will be on everyone's desk in two to three years", he said.
"It will be a normal thing to see someone [while on a call] but the biggest challenge is the networks - we've been very slow in Australia."
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