by Mariette Johnson Wharton, VP of Marketing

Research Now released a recent survey of 1200 global business professionals on the topic of video conferencing. The study showed that most (79%) who use video conferencing are using consumer technologies such as Skype. The remainder (21%) use business-grade video conferencing systems from the likes of Tandberg, Cisco and Polycom.

Given that most are using consumer-grade video conferencing applications for business meetings, it’s not surprising that the majority (61%) reported quality problems such as video delay.

As high-quality dedicated video conferencing systems (available for as little $800-$1500) become more commonplace and as more service providers offer inexpensive video conferencing solutions (such as Vidtel’s Connect service), it’s only a matter of time before business-grade video conferencing takes considerable share away from consumer applications.

It’s no surprise either that the survey shows reduced travel expenses and improved quality of business communications are behind the video conferencing trend.  These are significant benefits and 40% of the survey respondents reported their companies will be deploying a video conferencing within the next 6-24 months.

Let’s just hope they spare themselves the aggravations of lower-quality solutions when high-quality, reasonably priced solutions are on the market today.  At Vidtel, we conduct our video conferences on Tandberg and Polycom dedicated video conferencing devices in the $800-$1500 range with TV-like quality.  Hardly any reason to travel any more, except for fun.