AttendAnywhere brings high-end video conferencing to the corporate masses

David — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:00:00 +0000

Disclaimer: I have undertaken some consulting work for AttendAnywhere in the past. This post only covers what is publicly available and I haven't received a penny for writing this. About the only thing I may get from the AttendAnywhere guys is a beer (or a slap on the head) the next time I am in Melbourne. Anyhow, on with the show...

Rising fuel prices, hectic schedules and incessant climate change warnings are making us more aware of the hidden costs of 'same room' meetings. Whilst telephone conferences alleviate the need for travel, a lack of visual feedback leaves such exchanges feeling one dimensional and disjointed. Up till now video conference choices have either been too costly or rudimentary to be viable business solutions. In an effort to change this, Melbourne-based AttendAnywhere have partnered with Vidyo to offer an affordable, on-demand, high-quality video conferencing solution.

That's me (on the right) taking part in a video conference. (click to enlarge)
Yes that is a .Net book in the background - I was young, naive and she promised to be gentle...

But what is wrong with Skype?

At this point many people start to wonder why you would want to spend money on video conferencing when Skype video is free. The AttendAnywhere/Vidyo combination provides a range of advantages over plain old Skype:

Multi-party conferences - Skype is limited to one on one video.
Screen sharing of applications - Is possible in Skype but requires third-party software.
Very low-latency audio - Ever tried having a conversation on Skype only to talk over people? Vidyo has pretty much solved this problem.
High quality, robust calls - Skype video works, but is not that consistent as far as video or audio quality goes. Vidyo dynamically degrades the video and audio quality to make sure the conversation can still keep going.
Meeting management - Skype lets you make calls but it does not help when it comes to setting them up.
Ad-hoc meetings - With Skype you really need to be 'friends' with someone to start a meeting. In a business environment where you could be meeting with hundreds of relative strangers this is unwieldy.
Support - Skype is a subsidiary of eBay focused on mainstream audio services. AttendAnywhere is dedicated to business to business video conferencing.

How affordable is affordable?

The reality is high quality, business-critical video conferencing cannot be achieved for free. No matter how the solution is deployed there will be significant infrastructure and support costs. However, consider this back of the envelope comparison of a traditional setup vs AttendAnywhere's on-demand offering.

In this example we will use a hypothetical three office company that conducts 10 hours of video conference meetings per week, or approximately 31,200 meeting minutes per year (all values in Australian dollars):

The traditional video conferencing model

Description of expense	Total cost per year
Video conferencing units (Cisco/Polycom) - $6,000.00 per office	$18,000
Dedicated ISDN lines - $350 per month per office	$12,600
Third-party technician to install and support equipment - 10hrs per month @ $140hr	$16,800
Total cost	$40,200
Approximate 'per minute' cost:	$1.52

The on-demand (Software as a Service) video conferencing model

Description of expense	Total cost per year
AttendAnywhere subscription - $0.36 per minute x 43,000 AA minutes*	$15,480
Decent PCs with good quality web cameras and microphones - $2,500 per office	$7,500
Extra Internet bandwidth on top of standard connection - $50 extra per month per office	$1,800
In-house technician to install and support computers - 4hrs per month @$70hr	$3,360
Total cost	$28,140
Approximate 'per minute' cost:	$0.90

* 43,000 AttendAnywhere minutes = 25,000 minutes one to one conversation and 6,000 minutes of three way conversation (different rates apply)

The above calculations assume three dedicated PCs would be purchased rather than reusing existing hardware. It also assumes that an existing network infrastructure and support system is in place (i.e. an internal "I.T. guy"). Even taking into account these hardware costs, an on-demand video conferencing solution still comes out significantly cheaper per minute than a traditional, dedicated setup.

How does AttendAnywhere do it?

AttendAnywhere itself does not produce video conferencing software, it simply resells access to high-end Vidyo developed systems. Vidyo are relative newcomers to the video conferencing market, but they have designed some pretty impressive technology based on the h.264/SVC standard. Their software delivers high quality video conferencing over low quality Internet connections. If you want to know more checkout a demonstration video on their website. AttendAnywhere has taken this raw technology, reconfigured it for a shared environment and built a management layer on top to enable people to easily setup and join meetings.

Okay but what is it like to use?

Even if something is cheaper than the competition and technically superior it still has to work well and look good to be accepted. Joel Spolksky's recent RailsConf 08 keynote hammered this point home (if you have not heard this talk check it out).

"Great software has three components... making people happy... obsessing over aesthetics... and observing the culture code."

Joel Spolsky, RailsConf 2008
8:25 - 8:35

As far as AttendAnywhere goes the overall experience is good, but it is still a little raw and in some parts muddled. This can be attributed to two things: the company is undergoing a tricky migration of business models, and the on-demand Vidyo service is very new.

Prior to offering on-demand video conferencing AttendAnywhere's primary business was distributed events management (primarily in the health-care sector). The problem is this side of the business is quite distinct (and harder to understand) than their more generic offering. Unfortunately rather than offering two completely distinct services the two are intertwined and compete for attention on the same page. Whilst a minority of existing users may like this, new Vidyo-centric customers will probably find this "other stuff" more than a little baffling.

But all is forgiven, the video conferencing really does work!

The Vidyo component is very new (i.e. just out of beta) but generally excellent. Currently the client is Windows only, but it is built in Java, so in theory it could be ported to OSX and Linux. Installation is a snap because when you select to join an AttendAnywhere meeting the software downloads and installs automatically so long as you have Java installed (thank you Java Web Start).

An average trans-Tasman Vidyo meeting. The white box at the very front is the microphone (click to enlarge)

Video quality does depend on the hardware and bandwidth you have at your disposal. AttendAnywhere has a good technical rundown of what you need to see good results. The examples you see here are taken from my two year old 20" iMac running Windows. On occasion I have also used a MacBook Air to achieve a similar outcome. In both cases I have used Apple's built in iSight cameras without any issues.

Technical details aside the Vidyo client is very straight forward to use. It has a single row of buttons along the top for controlling screen layouts, screen sharing, volume and not much else. In an Apple-like manner it seems to "just work", and for the most part this is the case.

The value of a good, noise cancelling microphone

One thing that needs mentioning is the value of a decent microphone. Many webcams have microphones built-in, but when it comes to anything serious you really need to splash out on a decent, noise canceling unit. The ClearOne CHAT 50 is very good for a group of people, but when by myself I use a Logitech microphone and a pair of iPod earbuds (to stop audio feedback).

The organisation and network-centric paradigm

The AttendAnywhere web application forms the glue which changes Vidyo from a simple Skype competitor to a core business application. AttendAnywhere accounts are free and when you sign up you receive complimentary Vidyo minutes.

My company's profile complete with a photo of my desk (click to enlarge)

Within the system you can create your company and various types of networks. The concept of a network in AttendAnywhere is very similar to a Facebook group, except instead of sharing gossip you can easily share meeting invitations or begin 'ad-hoc' meetings. The privacy settings of networks can be tuned to cover a range of needs, from organisational departments through to special interest groups.

Networks can be associated to an organisation whilst still including interested third-parties (click to enlarge)

Preparing and joining a meeting

Setting up meetings is AttendAnywhere's bread and butter. Unlike your average calendar application the focus of meeting invitations is identifying how a geographically distributed group of people will come together. A big part of this involves managing the limited video conferencing resource that most organisations have available. Whilst it is common for consumer hardware to ship with webcams the overwhelming majority of corporate systems do not. Over time this will change, but in the short to medium term, business video conferencing will still involve groups of people huddling around dedicated computers and projectors.

Accepting an invitation means identifying where you will be joining from (click to enlarge)

When invitations are sent out the recipients must identify not only if they can attend but where they will be coming from and how many extra people can join them. This grows the video conference resource pool and makes it easier for those who cannot attend from their own computer to find someone nearby who is.

The cost of taking part in a meeting room can be offloaded to the parent organisation (click to enlarge)

Another important factor that AttendAnywhere takes into account is how the cost of the meeting will be covered. A single organisation can cover the entire cost of the meeting, or costs can be divvied up on a participant basis. For freeloading consultants like myself this is great because it means I do not need to pay (or seek reimbursement) to attend other people's meetings. I can also see this being very handy in architectural projects where one party (i.e. the client or lead-contractor) agrees to cover all project meeting costs.

The downer: interface overload

A business application's interface should strive to stay out of the way. This is because the goal of the person using it is to get in and get out - they are not interested in pausing to take in the view. Unfortunately AttendAnywhere's current web interface has not had the time to go through these optimisations and is still very much a '1.0' experience.

The main issue is that there is too much 'interface candyfloss', words for the sake of words and options repeated in various places for no obvious benefit. For example having an option that reads "Create a network" with a subtext of "Create a new network" does not add anything except another centimeter to the overall page length. In contrast if you take a look at the Projjex interface the majority of the screen is made available for things you are interested in. They have also used tool-tips to introduce newcomers to functionality without cluttering up the seasoned user's experience.

The Projjex interface is concise and makes excellent use of tool-tips (click to enlarge)

Did I hear someone say makeover?

How much of this candyfloss can be trimmed from the web experience you ask? Well after a few weeks of using the service I have some ideas. Take for example the following (typical) AttendAnywhere screen:

Before: The existing interface: 80% of which I don't use or understand (click to enlarge)

I took this screenshot into Photoshop and took a knife to all the things I did not use or had no interest in. The result was this tight little number:

After: My wish: Get rid of the textual candyfloss and stuff I don't care about (click to enlarge)

Okay it may not look radically different, but by stripping out the candyfloss and deleting the obtrusive menus the important things are a lot clearer (to me at least). Not only is it easier on the eye but you get the added benefit of having everything fit within a single browser window.

Conclusion

The AttendAnywhere/Vidyo combination is really promising. Whilst there is a long road ahead and it has plenty of maturing to do, the service provides an excellent balance between price and performance. Companies like AttendAnywhere stand to profit from the hesitancy of mainstream brands such as Skype and Apple to enter the world of serious video conferencing. If you live in the Australasian region and are interested in checking out AttendAnywhere/Vidyo go ahead and sign up. I can't guarantee flawless results, but if your experience is anything like mine you will be pleasantly surprised.

FireAnt: an iTunes competitor in the video space

David — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 04:39:15 +0000

FireAnt brings video, RSS and tagging together into a very tidy package used for automatically downloading video content onto your desktop or personal media player. It is interesting that people can construct their own 'channels' which are a series of different (or similar) shows and act like a mini-CNN, Discovery Channel or E!

Whilst Apple's iTunes video service it is still targeted at the 'pay per episode' model it would be nice to see a competitor offer something that worked with the concept of channels. We do not have the bandwidth or the iTunes video store in New Zealand but it would be nice to imagine a day where I could subscribe to and pay for mini-channels produced by people of my same interest group featuring both commercial content, videoblogs and adverts. For example I would gladly subscribe and pay for a channel that played the Simpsons, TWiT, Discovery Channel documentaries about space, the highlights of BBC World News and an episode of Lost. That would be a great night(s) television watching. Plus I would not mind the adverts as long as they related to me (ie nothing about retirement, womans products or toilet paper). Conventional broadcasting models do not allow for this but digital video based environments like what are evolving certainly do.

No more Windows Media Player for OSX

David — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 21:02:20 +0000

Contrary to the title this is actually really good news because the application runs terribly on OSX. Fortunately Microsoft have replaced it with a Quicktime plugin that lets you run Windows Media files natively through Quicktime (a much cleaner solution).

Hopefully this helps the streaming of Windows Media content which for me never really worked.
Download the plugin from Microsoft's Download Centre.

osx
video

Ruby on Rails 15 minute Intro video

David — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 11:33:15 +0000

This introduction video for Ruby on Rails is very impressive. Even if you don't know anything about programming it comes across as being very easy. If you are used to programming in Java like me watching this made me very, very jealous....

Ruby on Rails 15 minute introduction video

The International Financial Centre

David — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 04:57:34 +0000

On Friday we did some touring of Hong Kong island. The weather was not great but it did mean we did not feel bad cruising through vast shopping malls fulled with Prada and Clarins stores. After some searching we found the lobby for the International Financial Centre I, a really impressive 100 story tower. There is a public library on the 55th floor but no public observation deck. After getting some visitor id tags we took the express lift up there. The lift had CNNs financial news showing which was quite funny and the 55 level trip took less than a minute.The view was amazing and the quality of the IFC tower both inside and out is second to none. Whilst not a true observation deck the library had more tourists than researchers trying to snap photographs of the amazing view. It was far more impressive than the view offered by the Sky Tower and whats is more it was completely free.

Click to view movie (4.8meg)

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