LifeSize bid to top videoconferencing slot
US vendor has high hopes for the high-definition product range it will ship from the end of this month
Video communications vendor LifeSize told CRN it is aiming to be the number one player in the videoconferencing (VC) market, despite the fact that it has not even entered the market yet. The bullish company is preparing to start shipping its high-definition (HD) VC products at the end of October.
The US firm, set up in 2003, has spent the past two and a half years developing its product range (CRN, 3 May). Its flagship product is LifeSize Room, which the company has claimed connects to any display to provide HD video communications, in situations ranging from the boardroom to the classroom.
“Our ultimate goal is to be number one in the VC market. It will probably take us several years to get there, but we feel we’ve got a substantial technology lead by being the only manufacturer producing an HD product.
“Eventually our competitors will bring out HD VC products, but we believe we can use our 18-month market lead to gain some market share globally,” said Craig Malloy, chief executive of LifeSize.
Malloy said that LifeSize’s competitors have announced intentions to bring out HD products, but that they haven’t put anything on the market yet. “We are providing a better VC experience for about the same price as a Tandberg or Polycom normal VC system,” he said.
LifeSize’s main route to market is the channel. It has signed up five new partners in the UK this year – NIAD Communications, nuVideo, Focus21, Questmark, and Direct Visual.
“Five channel partners is sufficient for now in the UK. It gives us plenty of capacity to meet our revenue targets for the next couple of years. We want to have just a few highly specialised, confident channel partners,” added Malloy. Andrew Davis, managing partner at Wainhouse Research, said: “LifeSize has a significant lead on the competition, all of whom have said they will follow with HD VC products.
“LifeSize has developed an HD camera, which is a significant undertaking that I believe none of the others have chosen to pursue, relying on a third-party camera. This has worked in the past and may or may not be the optimum strategy for HD.
“LifeSize also uses a compression-decompression engine that has the power to handle HD signals. Its
rival products have less computing power at the present time; but as chip technology advances, it is not clear which VC vendor will be in the lead at any point in time. LifeSize is supposed to start shipping in about a month, so we shall see what happens.
“However, there is little pent up demand right now for HD VC; our research shows that users are satisfied with today’s quality. We will be watching to see how this changes in the short to medium term,” Davis added.