Vidyo is launching a new product called VidyoWay, the video conferencing firm announced today. This service will serve as a complement to the company’s flagship service portfolio, VidyoConferencing.
While VidyoWay may compete with services such as Skype and ooVoo, it will differ from them in several ways, starting with interconnectivity. It can be used from smartphones and PCs, and also from corporate conference rooms using Polycom, Cisco/Tandberg and Microsoft Lync endpoints, among others.
According to Vidyo’s SVP of Market Development, Marty Hollander, this is an important technical achievement, as interconnectivity is one of the main challenges facing video conferencing. VidyoWay also delivers a higher service quality than equivalent consumer products and can handle up to 9 HD participants, which makes it more appropriate in a B2B environment.
More importantly, it does it for free and this won’t change in the foreseeable future, as the company doesn’t plan to ever monetize the service. If you are wondering why they won’t charge for it, the answer is simple: VidyoWay will serve as a marketing tool for Vidyo’s paid, higher-quality corporate services. This obviously sets it apart from competitors that don’t provide a free option, such as with companies that only offer one product.
Vidyo doesn’t need VidyoWay to be profitable as it has already built a lucrative video conferencing business. In addition to its own corporate clients, it also powers services such as Google+ Hangouts.
On a higher level, VidyoWay could also help promote video conferencing as a whole, Vidyo’s CEO and co-founder Ofer Shapiro explains:
“Widespread video conferencing adoption has, to date, been inhibited by low-quality user experiences, high costs and manual connection process. The business process to achieve interconnectivity is very costly and cumbersome. VidyoWay provides true free connectivity to legacy systems through a free conference room in the [cloud].”
If your company wants to give the service a try, it can apply for pre-registration on Vidyo’s website.
Via: TNW
