Nobody works in complete isolation. In virtually all lines of business, contact with other people will be required in some capacity. Whether it is meeting with clients or colleagues; presenting new ideas or products; or giving or receiving training, good communication is the key to running a successful business.
However, in the modern world of commerce, business takes place twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Large, international organizations have sites across the globe and thanks to the Internet, even small and medium sized companies have found themselves trading on an international scale.
International markets and twenty-four hour business undoubtedly provide great opportunities, but they are not without their difficulties. Trying to arrange a seminar for a large number of delegates based in different countries, for example, can be a logistical nightmare. Diaries need to be synchronized, flights booked, accommodation sourced and meeting facilities organized. It is a major undertaking, and one that takes a lot of time, money and effort.
No Need To Travel
In this instance, the advantages of web conferencing are easy to see - nobody needs to travel anywhere. From the comfort of their own office delegates can participate in meetings and seminars without having to travel a single extra mile.
For smaller organizations, web conferencing can open up whole new markets. Where before, perhaps there was not the man-power to spare for long periods out of the office, web conferencing reduces the need for travel to allow face to face meetings. Proposals can be pitched and new business won without the need for lengthy trips away from the office.
The reduced need for travel that web conferencing brings has other advantages; staff spend less time traveling and more time at home – that should make for a happier and more productive workforce; thousands of dollars spend on air fares, car hire and accommodation are saved and less time is spent sourcing flights and making hotel reservations. All these benefits, simply by reducing the need for travel with web conferencing.
No new technology develops smoothly, and video conferencing had more than its share of bumps along the way before becoming the widely used communications staple it is today. The history of video conferencing in its earliest form goes back to the 1960’s, when AT&T introduced the Picturephone at the World’s Fair in New York. While viewed as a fascinating curiosity, it never became popular and was too expensive to be practical for most consumers when it was offered for $160 a month in 1970.
Commercial use of real video conferencing was first realized with Ericsson’s demonstration of the first trans-Atlantic LME video telephone call. Soon other companies began refining video conferencing technologies, including such advancements as network video protocol (NVP) in 1976 and packet video protocol (PVP) in 1981. None of these were put into commercial use, however, and stayed in the laboratory or private company use.
In 1976, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone established video conferencing (VC) between Tokyo and Osaka for company use. IBM Japan followed suit in 1982 by establishing VC running at 48000bps to link up with already established internal IBM video conferencing links in the United States so that they could have weekly meetings.
The 1980’s introduce commercial video conferencing
In 1982, Compression Labs introduces their VC system to the world for $250,000 with lines for $1,000 an hour. The system was huge and used enormous resources capable of tripping 15 amp circuit breakers. It was, however, the only working VC system available until PictureTel’s VC hit the market in 1986 with their substantially cheaper $80,000 system with $100 per hour lines.
In the time in between these two commercially offered systems, there were other video conferencing systems developed that were never offered commercially. The history of video conferencing isn’t complete without mentioning these systems that were either prototypes or systems developed specifically for in-house use by a variety of corporations or organizations, including the military. Around 1984, Datapoint was using the Datapoint MINX system on their Texas campus, and had provided the system to the military.
In the late 1980’s, Mitsubishi began selling a still-picture phone that was basically a flop in the market place. They dropped the line two years after introducing it. In 1991, the first PC based video conferencing system was introduced by IBM – PicTel. It was a black and white system using what was at the time an incredibly inexpensive $30 per hour for the lines, while the system itself was $20,000. In June of the same year, DARTnet had successfully connected a transcontinental IP network of over a dozen research sites in the United States and Great Britain using T1 trunks. Today, DARTnet has evolved into the CAIRN system, which connects dozens of institutions.