---

Tsahi from the blog next door wrote an interesting post on the 8 features he would like to see added to the TV set of the future. As I am not a big TV fan, but am a technophile and writing a blog mainly on Video Conferencing, I pondered about what killer features would I want in my (future) video conferencing solution (which I will henceforth call FVCS).

Let me first tell you that I honestly believe that my future video conferencing solution would be a desktop solution. Yes, there will still be meeting rooms with big video conferencing systems in them. Yes, I will probably participate in video conferences using my mobile handset. But as I spend most of my day in front of my desktop, and all my useful applications run there, so should my video conferencing solution.

Microsoft’s Office Communicator Connected with Scopia Desktop

And now for the list of my Octet of features to kill for in my FVCS:

1. Seamless Connection Anywhere

I want to be able connect using my laptop from anywhere – home, favorite coffee shop, hotel room when I’m abroad, even on a plane – and use my FVCS as easy and as natural as I use it in the office.

I want to be able to connect partners, suppliers, colleagues who are not part of the organization to conference calls as easy as I can connect peers.

I don’t really care about details (FW traversal is a necessary). It just has to work.

2. No Software Downloads, Thank You Very Much!

I want to be able to use my FVCS on any computer, not just my desktop. Is it too much to ask?

And I don’t want to bother with downloading stuff, installing it, registering.

I want to be able to open a browser, point it somewhere, and… that’s it. Video conferencing galore.

3. Conference Recordings

John Chambers said that “if there’s a killer app, it’s video“. If I can record anything – my kid playing, my favorite TV show, the live newsfeed on that cool website – and watch it all over again when I choose, why can’t I do it with my video conferences?

I want to be able to re-visit conferences I’ve been in. I want to search those based on participants, topic, agenda, comments I made (or others). I want to be able to trace what that guy from Marketing said about that feature that made us implement it in the first place. And it should be easy as watching the last episode of “House” on my PVR.

And why should I even bother to actively record? Why not have them conferences recorded for me automatically, just like my IM conversations which are always stored and can be accessed at any time.

4. Desktop Collaboration

Data Collaboration has been in the heart of Unified Communication, even before Unified Communication. But with all due respect current data collaboration tools and their integration with video processing systems is still complicated and limited. I’ve been to too many meetings that got delayed, postponed and even canceled because of problems concerning collaboration.

Desktop collaboration should be just as the name implies. Just as video conferencing should imitate an in-person meeting, desktop collaboration should be just like everyone’s sitting around my computer screen and watching what I’m doing. Nothing more, nothing less.

5. High Definition

High Def this, High Def that. In a couple of years High Definition would be Standard (Definition). My laptop would support HD, my desktop camera would support HD, so my FVCS better be HD.

I don’t really need to explain why, RIGHT?!

6. Presence

You are where your presence information say you are. So my FVSC better be using presence.

It should be able to update my presence information automatically (“Sagee is now in a conference”), allow me to change my presence information easily and display presence information from other video conferencing systems (“Tsahi is in a conference call. He will be free in 30 minutes”).

Oh, and I don’t want the presence info to be proprietary or separated from my other presence information on my other systems. It should be one system to rule them all. A unified experience (see item #7 for details).

7. Unified Everything

Video conferencing is important, but it’s only a first step towards Unified Communication, or however you want to call a true solution, where everything concerning works with one another, to increase effectiveness of human business communication.

I am not sure who will reign in the UC market (and I have had my shares of titan clashes already…), but whomever it may be – Microsoft with OCS, IBM with Sametime, Cisco with the UCM, Alcatel-Lucent or someone else – I want my FVCS to work with it.

And by work I mean take advantage of all that is great in UC – update my presence information (killer feature #6) and use other people’s presence information, use instant messaging, expose that valuable presence information to enterprise applications that can use it to my advantage, etc.

Video conferencing is important, but it’s only a first step towards Unified Communication, or however you want to call a true solution, where everything concerning works with one another, to increase effectiveness of human business communication.

8. Variety of Communication Tools

It’s true – my FVCS is intended to connect me to a video conference. But just as I may be attending a meeting, but then use my notorious multi-tasking skills to do other things during the meeting (chat with someone quietly, exchange a joke here and there, wink to someone, give someone a scary look…), I want to be able to use other means of communication during my video conference.

I want to be able to chat with conference participants, either publicly (“people, please be quiet and let me speak!”) or privately (“Tsahi, please mute yourself!”). I want to be able to send a participant files. I want to be able to take a side-track with someone, talk to him discretely while listening to the conference.