Earlier this month we held the RADVISION Unified Communication Summit here in Tel-Aviv. Somehow, I was given the task of giving a closing key-note presentation with the words “Social” and “Media” in it. Initially, I hated the task – I always regard “social media” presentations as boring and a bit exaggerated. They tend to disregard marketing models that have worked for decades in favor of new ones, and they usually forget to indicate that for each successful social media campaign
(read more...)
By Tsahi Levent-Levi | November 30th, 2009 | Filed under Technology
LEGO® brick analogies are overused. I’ll accept that. Nevertheless, this is the best I can do at the moment, so please bear with me. The simplicity of the base element – The Brick itself – is amazing. The ability to universally click together bricks of different sizes and colors created the whole universe of “things”. Let’s just look at some facts: There are more than 300 million kids playing with LEGOs worldwide (not accounting for hordes of willing
(read more...)
By guest | October 19th, 2009 | Filed under Standardization
Ran has written about standardizing human behaviors in the past, but I think he missed an important question that has surfaced with the latest hype of the Media Phone: who drops the call? I apologize in advance if this sounds like a long rant… My Cisco IP Phone In my office I am the proud “owner” of a Cisco IP Phone. A piece of robust technology, that has been assisting me in my daily work for years now. It
(read more...)
By Tsahi Levent-Levi | October 14th, 2009 | Filed under Technology
There’s a lot of talk around the blogosphere about Skype going SIP, especially in light of all their Joltid problems. People who are avid SIP advocates in our VoIP industry see this as a sign that Skype should (and will) migrate their service to SIP soon. I don’t see it coming. Any reason for Skype to adopt SIP? Andy Abramson wrote, a month ago, that he likes Google Talk’s concept of a browser-based video client, but he believes Skype
(read more...)
By Tsahi Levent-Levi | September 30th, 2009 | Filed under Standardization, Technology
[Matan Barth is a Project Manager in our Global Services group. Since he is working on several projects that deal with IP PBX technologies, I've asked him to provide his views on this subject. As a result he'll be posting a series of posts on media relay. This is the first installment in the series.] To relay or not to relay – to paraphrase Shakespeare - is a decision that may well be as important as “to be or not
(read more...)
By guest | September 17th, 2009 | Filed under Technology
Video conferencing has been around for a long time – I should know, working at RADVISION for over a decade. It had been fun times, with lots of development and features being added. Then came HD – be it HD video or voice, increasing the quality (and experience) of a call dramatically. And then what? The hard truth is that for the last couple of years there is no real innovation in the video conferencing industry. Yeah, we talk about moving from 720p to 1080p, moving from 30 frames per second to 60 frames per second, adding another camera, adding more screens. But really – who cares? We’re marketing and selling the same solution we did years ago. It’s a bit faster, maybe a bit better, but that’s all. The margins companies make on video conferencing endpoints are diminishing yearly. The way to keep the pricing today Is to increase the video resolution. But there’s just so much you can charge for more resolution – we’ve already reached the point where it makes no sense to invest further. The open question to our industry is: what’s next? What will be the next innovation that will drive our niche and maybe, just maybe, bring it to the critical mass I’ve been told exist just around the corner.
By Tsahi Levent-Levi | September 7th, 2009 | Filed under Technology
VoIP blogs have been filled with optimism lately about the prospects of mobile VoIP. Om Malik reports about this: But two recent statements by carriers from different parts of the world are making me wonder if the mobile phone companies are softening their stance on mobile VoIP. Last week, Verizon went out of its way to highlight the fact that it had tested VoIP calling on its new 4G wireless network. (The other 4G wireless company, Clearwire, has warmed up
(read more...)
By Tsahi Levent-Levi | August 27th, 2009 | Filed under Technology
Dave Michels wrote a thought provoking article over at NoJitter, where he came to the conclusion that the IP Phone has peaked: The handwriting is on the wall, and rather than mourn the IP Phone, we should celebrate its short life. Perhaps “mourn” is too strong; its decline will be slow. Death in this industry is extremely slow–consider all the dead digital phones still freshly manufactured every day. So while death may be a point of contention or exaggeration, decline
(read more...)
By Tsahi Levent-Levi | August 3rd, 2009 | Filed under Clients
Tomorrow, July 16th at 10 AM EDT, we’ll be hosting a free webinar on HD video communication solutions for developers. This webinar is the first of a series of 3 webinars titled “SIP-IMS – from client through infrastructure to beyond telecomm.” We will then host a webinar on October 21st titled “Comprehensive IMS solutions from client to infrastructure.” The third webinar will be on November 18th and it will discuss usage of SIP for non-telecom applications – “SIP beyond telecomm.” Amit Lavi, our Product Manager for HD solutions, will be the main speaker on this webinar accompanied by Amir Zmora, out VP of Marketing and moderated by the one and only Carl Ford from CrossFire Media. Amit and Amir will be sharing their views on the development of HD visual communication devices. If you are planning on adding video calling to your products, or if you are unsure of where you should start, this webinar will help assuage your fears and identify common issues that might be holding you back. The 1 hour webinar will conclude with an open Q&A with the team. If you’d like to attend, registration for the webinar is needed. Hope to see you there!
By Tsahi Levent-Levi | July 15th, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized
There are those who believe that visual communications is something best done on hardware. Others believe the way to go is software. A “holistic” view would say that the truth is – as always – somewhere in the middle. As anyone else looking for an easy way out, I’d choose this view. I also like the fact it aligns well with our current desktop offering: SCOPIA Desktop, which is a software video client SCOPIA VC240, which is
(read more...)
By Tsahi Levent-Levi | July 6th, 2009 | Filed under Clients
