Infotech Lead America: The Canada Government will spend more for deploying telepresence solutions.
The Government of Canada readily embraces technologies such as telepresence to cut down on travel costs, improve communication, transform federal service provisioning and impact public service delivery while improving productivity and work-life balance for public servants.
Recently, Cisco highlighted the Government of Canada’s effort to boost productivity by using telepresence technology.
Tapping Canada government is important for Cisco that posted 19.8 percent decline in revenue in Q4 2012 against Q4 2011. Despite the significant decrease in growth, Cisco is the leader with 44.8 percent of the market in Q4, which is up slightly from the 43.3 percent share in Q3 2012.
It is a good news for telepresence vendors as IDC recently pointed out that reduced Capex by governments and public sectors has impacted the growth of telepresence.
Rich Costello, senior analyst, Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, at IDC, said: “Several of the video vendors pointed to the difficult global macroeconomic situation, fiscal uncertainty, and cutbacks in spending in key areas such as the public sector, including government and education, as reasons for the challenging annual 2012 results.”
In the budget document, the Canada Government states, “Federal departments will increasingly replace travel by using remote meeting alternatives such as telepresence, which is similar to videoconferencing but enables participants to see life-size, full-motion video with high-quality sound. These alternatives are more cost-effective than travel and will increase productivity, as public servants will spend less time in transit.”
Technologies like telepresence makes it possible for teams from across the country and around the world to meet and collaborate as if they are in the same room. Cisco TelePresence also facilitates faster decision making.
According to a new vendor and market analysis by IDC, Cisco with 41.9 percent market share and Polycom with 32.5 percent market share were found to be leaders in the worldwide immersive telepresence equipment market category for 2012-2013, while Huawei, Teliris, Radvision, Avaya, Logitech and Vidyo were recognized as major players.
The market research firm found Asia pacific to be a growth area for telepresence, while North America and EMEA are seen losing traction. High-end, multi-codec immersive telepresence saw a decline of interest with a 38.4 percent drop in sales year over year.
WinterGreen Research estimates telepresence markets to be worth $12.8 billion in 2018. Strong growth will be seen across all three markets segments, immersive, conference room, and end point. Growth will be driven by the availability of end point access. As people increasingly use of tablets and smartphones while traveling, tuning into meetings on the go will become more feasible when video capability is available.
Picture source: mhealthtalk.com
Sangeeta Sudhakaran
