To understand the reasons of such an incredible success, adoption and growth of video we need to analyse several factors such as the human nature that is mainly communicating through visual information as well as the different limitations such as quality, bandwidth, interoperability, that kept video very much limited to niche markets and to dedicated proprietary infrastructures since today in spite of its undoubted benefits to the market. Its importance and relevance to business is tied to the way human kind communicate, as people remember 70% of what they see and hear versus just 20% of what they only hear. It is therefore clear how adding video to the communication infrastructure of any kind could dramatically improve the way companies, employees, customers, markets and countries communicate.
On the other side the convergence to IP networks and standard protocols such as H323, SIP, MPEG etc. together with the growing availability of high bandwidth internet access through the world has overcome the most of the barriers that limited video in the past triggering a big convergence of all sort of video communication towards the “network”.
The result of these falling walls is under our eyes every day with “social” phenomenon like YouTube leading and with the new generation using video as 10 years ago people started to endorse emails.
In spite of the above big improvements one more barrier was still in place limiting the video communication between Business and Consumer as well as between Business and Business. This last “standing wall” was the need to have access to the intranet and custom video terminals to be part of a video business communication that of course made very difficult enabling B2C and B2B on a broad base. Today, in the consumer world, Skype is the leader de facto in communications over internet with more than 300 million registered users and offering the possibility of placing high quality video calls from anywhere in the world, using an internet connection and the free Skype client. The business world has moved to the next generation of PBX, through IP Telephony and finally to Unified Communications, where market leaders like Cisco, Avaya, Nortel, Tandberg, Polycom, Sony etc. support video telephony and video conferencing. The actual trend is that video telephony and video conferencing are merging into Unified Communications and Collaboration.
The last step that finally enables the two worlds described above to video communicate easily, effectively, making business much more profitable across vertical markets through video communications has been accomplished by STONEVOICE with its latest and unique product on the market: SkyStone Video. By leveraging it’s recognized value as the “the UC interoperability company” and it’s great competence around video communication, STONEVOICE has created SkyStone Video, the only product on the market that allows video communication between Enterprise video solutions of leading vendors such as Cisco, Sony, Polycom and others and Skype “standard” clients video enabled around the world.
Description of Skystone Video
SkyStone is the first IP software Skype Gateway on the market, providing the possibility of bridging the Skype consumer world with the IP PBX business world, namely allowing employees to call any Skype user directly from their desk phone and vice versa. Finally, the wall between the business Unified Communications and the consumer Internet Telephony was eliminated, providing full convergence to the user taking advantage either of their Skype client or their desk phone to call whomever on whatever network.
The natural step forward for Skystone was to provide unprecedented value through the support of Video capabilities. Therefore, Skystone has become the first and unique Video Skype Gateway worldwide. The call, illustrated in the previous example, can turn into a video call with the same simplicity, therefore breaking the boundaries of video communications: anyone can call a video enabled phone or even a video conference using a video enabled Skype client.
In fact, with the combination of another strategic product, Meetnow, the video software MCU, Stonevoice can offer full Videoconferencing capabilities between Skype Video clients, but also provide a compelling media termination point capability bridging all kinds of video end points from many leading vendors: Skype clients, videoconferencing rooms and desktop terminals, video enabled phones and soft-phones can be part of the same video conferencing room!
Target markets examples
Video Call Centers
For years, companies have been waiting for video call centres, but an issue has stopped the deployments: there was no simple remedy to find a new free video client on the customer’s pc to interconnect with the existing call centre technology. Also, other architecture problems, e.g. accessing the video gateway from the public internet (outside world), have created a definite showstopper.
With the advent of Skystone video, the customers calling the call centre can use the Skype free client and webcam (if needed), making the video call centre application a reality.
Mobility – Teleworking – External Collaboration
With Skystone, employees can talk with the Company Skype contacts (teleworkers, mobile employees, etc.) transparently using their desk phone, enhancing the communications potentials, including video at no cost.
Moreover, they can contact external contacts (business partners) directly on Skype with extreme simplicity; video calls and video conference calls can now be organized and attended independently of the terminal that is used and the exact location! The company employees will be able to enrich communications internally and externally, providing transparent heterogeneous video communication breaking down another of the barriers that kept video limited to the intranet of enterprises so far.
Advantages
Skystone video offers the following advantages:
- Video capabilities with the highest quality and simplicity: video is as easy as a standard call or conference call today
- Providing full convergence: from now on an audio or video call can be placed to anyone (PSTN or remote user with Skype) directly from the employee desk phone or from a video conferencing room and a simply as a standard call
- Software based:
- It contains an embedded evaluation, in order to try it before buying (what you see and experience is what you get!)
- It can be installed on any windows based PC or Server meeting the hw/sw requirements (no need to buy a costly imposed appliance)
- IP based: interoperable with IP PBX’s and Video Conferencing Terminals natively on IP, using standard protocols: SIP and H.323 (seamless integration and no need for extra hardware modules)
Features
- Completely software based: runs on any Windows Server
- Multichannel support up to 8 concurrent calls per server
- Per port licensing, regardless the number of phones or users.
- User-friendly and GUI based: fast and simple to define rules, routes, speed dials:
Skype to Phone features (web click to dial)
Phone to Skype features (speed dial)
Phone to Skype out features
- Call Detail Records (CDR) for billing
- Configuration backup/restore tool
- Supports DTMF relay for both Skype->VoIP and VoIP->Skype calls
- Embedded VNC engine to connect to console directly from the web interface
- Together with SkyStoneACD module to provide video call-center functionalities with web click to dial to a single company Skype account.
- International Standards compliancy:
VoIP protocols: H.323 and SIP
Audio Codecs: G.711, G.729(A)
Video Codecs: H.261, H.263
Video Rates: 128 Kbps up to 1,5 Mbps
DTMF modes: RFC2833
Live Video Resolutions: QCIF (176x144), CIF (352x288)
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