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“Desktop video conferencing is really gaining a lot of momentum. We’ve been in business 18 years and we’ve never seen this amount of momentum from the desktop video conferencing perspective,” Avistar CMO Stephen Epstein (News - Alert) said during a recent interview with TMCnet’s Rich Tehrani at the Interop New York 2010 Conference.

Avistar solutions are built from the all-software Avistar C3 (News - Alert) visual communications platform. The Avistar C3 Communicator can be deployed as a turnkey visual communications solution that provides full bandwidth management, call reporting and centralized configuration, meeting the needs of any sized business looking for a scalable and interoperable desktop conferencing experience. 

By opting for video conferencing, Avistar customers on average are able to reduce travel expenses by 20 percent while eliminating tons of carbon emissions on an annual basis. Clients and partners benefit from greater productivity, reduced expenses, increased margins and overall better work – life balance.

Epstein says his company has three current significant areas of focus:

• Bringing desktop video presence to UC solutions;
• A VDI-enabled platform;
• All their infrastructure is fully cloud-enabled.

UC strategies are also being embraced, adopted and deployed – particularly in large corporations. And video is a big part of that, according to Epstein.

Cloud-based solutions, too, are finding their way onto trading floors, in manufacturing plants and for distance learning.

“We’re seeing a lot of different trends, in a lot of different industries, for a lot of different reasons but it all comes down to desktop video,” Epstein said.

When it comes to home-based telepresence systems, Epstein has doubts about some of the new devices designed for family rooms. He explains that customers want to leverage the devices by their side, such as: tablets, PCs or laptops.

“You have it on your PC; you have it on your iPad. Are you really going to go to some device in your family room to speak with other people,” Esptein asks.

In the future, Avistar is looking at different ways to deliver their products such as:

• Mobile devices;
• OEM (original equipment manufacturer);

Finding ways to make other products better.