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Has the Video Interop Cold War Ended?

December 30, 2019 by Dave Michels

All year, I’ve been describing 2019 as the year of video-first communications. It’s the year that UCaaS providers decided to lead with video. It’s the year that video communications truly became mainstream. It’s the year that video became much more immersive and inclusive.

Innovation in video (or sometimes referred to simply as ‘meetings’) has been driving the collaboration portfolios at Amazon, Cisco, Microsoft, Google, and really most of the industry.

All year, I've been describing 2019 as the year of video-first communications. It's the year that UCaaS providers decided to lead with video. It's the year that video communications truly became mainstream. It's the year that video became much more immersive and inclusive.

Innovation in video (or sometimes referred to simply as 'meetings') has been driving the collaboration portfolios at Amazon, Cisco, Microsoft, Google, and really most of the industry.

Fuze launched a new video service
Zoom had a spectacular IPO
Highfive introduced unlimited free video, enterprise-wide, with the purchase of room systems
8x8 launched a free new video service
Lifesize and Bluejeans report new revenue milestones
Logitech video has been growing like a weed, and is even reporting an increase in average room revenue
Avaya made video a standard part of its new subscription offer
Vonage introduced Vonage Meetings
We saw AI related news all year including auto-framing, transcription services, live captioning, translation services, and virtual assistants

The list goes on. But, the biggest news came in November when Microsoft announced that for the first time that MS Teams will inter-operate with [anything] room systems from Cisco and Zoom. Cisco and Zoom each announced they would inter-operate with Microsoft Teams.

Basically, pigs are flying.

This research note dives deep into these announcements. I spoke with all three vendors as well as many other video experts. The report is almost 7 full pages in TalkingPointz format. It was sent out to subscribers this morning, and is also available here for purchase.

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By Dave Michels

Dave is an independent analyst and founder of TalkingPointz which is focused on enterprise communications. In addition to this (free and paid) content on TalkingPointz, he contributes to industry sites, can be found at major industry events, and provides advisory services to vendors and financial analysts.

Has the Video Interop Cold War Ended?

Not everything in life is free.

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