<<< Press Room Video Conferencing Grows Up August 10, 2005 BY JON VAN CHICAGO TRIBUNE CHICAGO - As high-speed Internet access continues to spread, the use of video-conferencing tools is becoming more mainstream -- and easier. By developing software that allows for video conferencing to become just another Internet application that is simply a mouse click away, business executives are beginning to embrace the tool. Anyone who can navigate the Web can join a conference. "We use it every day and save tens of thousands of dollars a month we would've spent on travel," said Larry Granger, chief operating officer at Tech Team Global Inc., based in Southfield, Mich. Managers there converse with counterparts in Brussels, Belgium, and in satellite offices in Virginia and Maryland, using multiple images of each other that can be projected onto a wall or shown on a laptop computer. While video conferencing has been around for years, it never gained widespread adoption typical of e-mail or instant messaging. Despite the growth audio conferencing showed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that decimated the travel industry, the effect on video conferencing was much smaller. But now some industry observers say that easy-to-use Internet-based video conferencing may change that. "When I arrived at Tech Team in 2002, they had a video-conferencing room, but the equipment was gathering dust," said Granger. "You needed a technician to operate the equipment and it was difficult to hook up 10 or15 people. "You'd never put a bunch of executives in that room by themselves. They'd break the equipment." A Chicago-based company, inSORS Integrated Communications Inc., developed the software Tech Team uses, based on research at Argonne National Laboratories and the University of Illinois. It is one of many enterprises to champion Web-based video. While it provides volume discounts, inSORS' software costs about $10,000 for10 desktops. Additional gear, such as a camera and headset, costs less than $100 per user. Operating video over existing broadband connections adds no additional cost. John Parkinson, chief technologist for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young LLC, who serves as an adviser to inSORS, uses the technology in a pilot test at his business. Cap Gemini is interested in using video conferencing to make specialists like himself available to clients without the need for traveling to see them, Parkinson said. "If we can make people available on demand, it is very useful," he said. "The results from the pilot are encouraging." Another area the conferencing industry is moving to- ward is called "presence," said Elliot Gold, president of TeleSpan Publishing Corp., a firm that tracks teleconferencing. The idea is that using a mobile phone, laptop, Blackberry or other device, a person can let the network know when he is free so that colleagues can inquire if he is available for a quick meeting. This feature is incorporated in the inSORS system and is used by other programs, including one from Microsoft Corp., said Gold. It enables people having a virtual meeting to reach out to colleagues as needed to get information. "It's the electronic equivalent of leaning out of your cubicle to ask someone a question," he said. At the moment, audio conferences augmented by Web page presentations are growing faster than video conferencing, said Timothy Reedy, chief executive of Conference Plus, the conferencing unit of Westell Technologies Inc. "The ad hoc world of video conferencing will take off," Reedy said, "but it will take some time to develop." <<< Press Room