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Vidyo officials are unveiling enhancements to the company’s software-based video conferencing platform that they say will make it easier and less expensive for enterprises to address such growing issues as an increasingly mobile workforce, around-the-clock customer demands and the need for greater security.
The company on Feb. 10 announced upgrades to its VidyoWorks platform that improve the software performance, reduce the amount of IT infrastructure needed for the Vidyo technology, increase security and offer greater flexibility.
“From the rise of remote workers, to heightened security demands to tightening of budgets, IT organizations are looking for technology that will not only meet their immediate needs but prove to be a valuable long-term investment,” Eran Westman, Vidyo president and CEO, said in a post on the company blog. “Not only do these innovations provide improved manageability, interoperability and security, these innovations make the software-based VidyoWorks platform an even higher performance platform, enabling IT organizations to extend the value of their investment.”
The company, which was founded in 2005, is one of a growing number of vendors that are driving software- and cloud-based solutions into the rapidly changing video conferencing market. Businesses are looking to expand their visual collaboration environments in ways that address the increasingly decentralized workforces, the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend and the skyrocketing numbers of mobile devices being used in business. Established vendors like Cisco Systems, Microsoft and Polycom are growing their software- and cloud-based offerings, while other players, including Blue Jeans Network, Zoom and Fuze, are looking to make inroads through software- and cloud-only products.
Analysts with IHS Infonetics in December noted the shift in the market away from expensive on-premises infrastructures and to a cloud delivery model, saying they expected revenue for cloud video conferencing in 2015 to grow to $281 million, a 25 percent increase over the previous year.
Vidyo’s technology can be accessed in a number of ways, including through housing it on commodity x86 servers, accessing it through Web browsers and embedding it in applications. For example, unified communications (UC) vendor Mitel in November 2015 announced it was expanding its video conferencing capabilities by embedding the VidyoWorks platform in its MiCollab UC software.
Through upgrades in the company’s VidyoWorks platform, officials said Vidyo boosted the performance levels of its VidyoPortal and VidyoGateway server products, cutting in half the necessary CPU requirements needed to get the same levels of performance. The new VidyoGateway VE (Virtual Edition) also can work with a broader range of host processors.
In addition, Vidyo hardened the general system security and operating system security around the platform to help meet the high standards in such areas as the military, financial services and health care. The interest in video conferencing technology in health care was highlighted in December when Vidyo officials announced that the corporate venture arm of health care company Kaiser Permanente—a Vidyo customer—had given the company $10 million as part of a recent $15 million funding round.
The new security efforts focus on the business-to-consumer (B2C) video market, ensuring secure communications between businesses and outside customers, officials said.
The company also eliminated the need for most customers for a session border controller (SBC) or Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-aware firewalls, and introduced new administrative user interfaces for easier system management, simpler networking configurations and improved support. Plus, Vidyo officials made it easier for guests to join meetings through WebRTC-enabled browsers, using VP8 or VP9 without plug-ins or having to install software, which they said is important for customers in the health care and financial services fields.
In addition, developers can now create custom WebRTC-based applications using Vidyo Client APIs.