The Media, Pundits and Bloggers

While I respect my colleagues in the industry, I wonder about the motivation behind some of their articles/blogs. While not singling anyone out, some of the UC/VC/AV/IT bloggers tend to follow what vendors are selling as opposed to what customers actually need at least as it appears to me.

What's dead according the media depending on the day of the week:

• Conference rooms
• Integrated equipment
• Hardware codecs
• Email
• Voicemail
• Anything other than huddle rooms using software codec.

I just read last week that "presence" was dead too. It died before I even had a chance to like it. Read more about my thoughts on presence HERE.

Let's take a look at why the above may be dead (according to some).

Conference rooms

They are expensive to equip and typically require integration. Pundits tend to think that no conference rooms are being planned and existing conference rooms are being subdivided into smaller huddle rooms. This is simply untrue. Sure, smaller companies may lack the square footage for large boardrooms or have remote workers, but saying that corporations are abandoning all conference rooms is incorrect.

Integrated Equipment

These are dead or dying due to security and complexity. Pundits call for an easy button from vendors. What needs to happen is that good integrators need to create this for the customer. Integrated equipment will continue to be an important part of the conference room (and huddle spaces). Going with a single vendor puts you in the position to live and die by their choices on what they think you should have within their eco system.

Hardware Codecs

These are dead due to cost and that "good enough" video is actually acceptable to everyone. It's not. Luckily, this rhetoric has been somewhat tempered over the course of last 18 months or so.

Email is dead

It's dead because Rowan uses Spark. I debunked "email is dead" here.

Voicemail

It's dead because Coke doesn't use it anymore. Pundits jumped on that one when it came out.

Everything other than Huddle rooms

Huddle rooms are THE hot thing with vendors and pundits right now. Is it the hot thing with enterprises? That's to be determined. They seem an easy sell though. Package up some simplified and inexpensive gear, toss in a cheap table and a mid sized display in a small room and there you go. It's easier to produce, sell and install than a large board room system.

Is the media just following the lead of the vendors in order to not fall out of favor with them? Or worse, writing blogs specifically to gain favor or to try to get them to sponsor their website or an article? I've no clue of the real reason but somethings doesn't seem right.

As you most likely know by now, I am on the payroll of a video conference vendor and not a professional pundit. This may skew things as does my probable lack of professionalism when calling a spade a spade. I just simply can't fall in line with those who write articles about this or that being dead regardless of reason. It's much better to identify that something is bad, present a better alternative and let the customer make the inferior product dead. But that's me.