LifeSize Adds Mobile HD Streaming To Video Center Play

By Chad Berndtson, CRN
feb. 15, 2011    2:22 PM EST

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LifeSize Communications on Tuesday added HD video content streaming for mobile devices to its flagship video management appliance, the latest step for the video company's expansion beyond its well-known video endpoints and into the broader infrastructurearena.

Specifically, the LifeSize Video Center will now be enabled for mobile streaming, meaning users can access live and on-demand HD video content from PCs, but also Apple (NSDQ:AAPL) iPhones, iPads and iPods connected to Wi-Fi or cellular networks. The one-way streams, such as from corporate or classroom presentations, are accessed via Web browser without any additional softwareneeded, according to LifeSize.

In addition, the Video Center now includes automatic adaptive streaming, meaning that users can stream an HD recording from a LifeSize 220 Series video endpoint at up to four different bitrates -- preserving the quality of video on mobile devices or even in instances of choppy bandwidth.

Users can also access and store video content using their existing network attached storage (NAS), and the LifeSize Video Center'sAPI is enhanced to let developers build Video Center content into third-party systems.

LifeSize first debuted the Video Center in April 2010 -- an appliance that processes HD video where it's created and offers advanced management of video content for network administrators and users to stream, record, auto-publish and store video, audio and data content.

The new enhancements will all be part of LifeSize Video Center Version 1.2, which will be available for download in March. Video Center is currently listed at $29,999 MSRP.

Cost savings and ease-of-use are two of LifeSize's most important value propositions to VARs and customers, said Rafi Anuar, product manager -- especially as a compelling alternative to video channel heavyweights like Cisco (NSDQ:CSCO) and Polycom.

"These are built from scratch, in house: both the endpoint side of the portfolio, and the infrastructure side of the portfolio, which includes Video Center and our bridge products," Anuar told CRN.

"When we set out to do Video Center, we looked at how existing solutions were architected," he added. "We use the LifeSize 200 series to transcode the video before it ever leaves the endpoint -- all that heavy transcoding work is being done right on the endpoint."

Video Center can offer up to 20 concurrent HD recordings, and 50 in standard definition. It can also enable up to 1,000 live video streams and up to 350 simultaneous on-demand streams, all in 720p30 HD video.

LifeSize, which was acquired by Logitech in 2009, has about 15,000 customers in 100 countries, according to its executives.

Its channel program, which LifeSize retooled about a year ago, numbers about 1,500 VARs, and OEM and integration partnerships with the likes of Avaya and Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT).

HP Networking Unified Communications Platforms Face Less Than Certain Future

Competitive Positives

• The VCX Unified Communications Platforms remain on offer within the HP Networking portfolio.
Customers can still purchase them; channels can still actively sell them.
• HP has committed to releasing at least one additional software update – VCX 9.8 which will be available later this year.
• HP has a wide range of relationships with developers of telephony systems and software.
These can be leveraged to help transition VCX customers to other products when and if the need arises.

Competitive Concerns

• HP has not the committed marketing and sales resources vital to raising awareness of VCX in the market.
• Without a significant amount of marketing and sales resources dedicated to VCX the product is highly likely
 to fail in the extremely competitive UC market.
• For much of 2010 HP worked to integrate VCX into its portfolio of networking products, giving customers
and channel partners every indication that it was committed to the product.
• Without VCX HP will have no unified communications products in its portfolio,
a weakness compared with Cisco, Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent and Siemens Enterprise, all of which deliver an end-to-end portfolio
 of voice and data products.

Event Summary

January 27, 2011 – HP Networking has placed its VCX Unified Communications Platforms into maintenance mode. The company will continue supporting the products but ongoing development of them has by and large ceased.

Analytical SummaryPerspective

• Very negative on HP placing into maintenance-only mode the UC systems and software that came with its acquisition of 3Com. Since its acquisition of 3Com HP added the VCX line of PBXs and ancillary communications software to portfolio of networking systems, narrowing its market focus to the SMB rather than to both SMBs and enterprises as the products were positioned under 3Com. HP stopped short of actually discontinuing the VCX line of communications solutions. But with HP not committing to its long-term development or dedicating marketing resources that would raise its visibility in the UC market, HP will very likely create a downward spiral from which the VCX will be unable to survive as a viable UC offering.

Vendor Importance

• High to HP, because without VCX as a viable product HP will not be able to execute on the portion of its UC strategy which, for the past few months, has been to sell its own branded telephony systems to SMBs. Though HP could simplify technology partner relationships with Avaya and others made complicated by a UC product line under the HP Networking brand, it would leave HP without a telephony platform of its own. As a result HP would not be able to offer an end-to-end line of voice and data solutions as Cisco, Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent and Siemens Enterprise can deliver.

Market Impact

• High to HP customers and resellers with investments in VCX systems and software because it is looking like the VCX’s days are numbered. If the product slips from maintenance-only to end-of-sale, VCX customers and resellers will gradually need to seek other options for the business communications solutions they respectively buy and sell. Low to HP’s competitors in the UC market because VCX does not have much visibility not does it often appear on RFPs.