Adobe Connect Blog

The use of videoconferencing in business has been on the rise over the last few years, but it wasn’t until recently that the Department of Defense (DOD) started heavily pushing for its use in its day-to-day operations. In the past, the DOD’s enterprise collaboration tool, Defense Connect Online (DCO), which is powered by Adobe Connect, had been used primarily to supplement physical conferences.

Recently, Federal Computer Week magazine sat down with our Mike Murtha, who manages the DCO program here at Adobe to discuss the DCO program. Mike reiterated the increased demand by the DOD to use videoconferencing to replace physical meetings and conferences. “Over the past three months, we have gotten a lot of inquiries [saying]: ‘We want to run an entire conference virtually,’” Murtha said.

FCW also discussed barriers that were in place that discouraged the use of videoconferencing such as costs, security concerns, and infrastructure requirements. The article noted that an advantage that Adobe Connect offers is that its services also provide videoconferencing capabilities for both desktops and mobile devices. Mike mentioned that the DCO system wasn’t initially built for videoconferencing, but that the customers are pushing it in that direction.

To read more about how federal agencies are promoting the use of videoconferencing, click here.

What an amazing time last week in Orlando for both the Adobe Learning Summit 2011 (#ALS2011) and the Learning Solutions Conference & Expo 2011 (#LS2011). I had the great opportunity during my time at both to show off the new version of Adobe Connect Mobile for Android on the Motorola XOOM tablet! While not everyone got to see the application in action, between myself and my Adobe colleague, RJ Jacquez (@rjacquez), who also had a XOOM and was showing conference attendees Adobe Captivate content, we cast a fairly wide net of how Adobe is trending in the mobile learning (mLearning) space.

One of the biggest themes across both conferences was, in fact, mLearning. There were more questions than answers and even fewer examples (with exception of the awesome mLearning work that Josh Cavalier (@JoshCav) is doing over at http://www.lodestone.com/). That said, it’s clear learning practitioners are very interested in mLearning and eager to get their hands on technologies that will give them an instant mobile learning solution. Enter the latest version of Adobe Connect Mobile.

At ALS2011, I attended Adobe Connect team member Peter Ryce’s session, Extensibility = Learner Engagement, where between the two of us, we demoed Adobe Connect from his laptop, his Android smartphone and from the XOOM I had with me! With the new mobile app, I participated in polls, the chat pod and even broadcast video from the XOOM’s camera live to the audience, in excellent quality, and over hotel WiFi. The Adobe Connect experience on the tablet is superior! I could sense the excitement from attendees and its implications for mLearning by those who witnessed it. Adobe Connect Mobile on the XOOM, and other tablets, represents an entirely new opportunity for mLearning – the mobile virtual learning environment or classroom. The virtual classroom has never been this accessible on a mobile device.

Over at LS2011, I attended How to Produce Consistently Engaging Virtual Online Sessions with Chris Benz (@chris_benz) and Karen Hyder (@karenhyder), both of the eLearningGuild – a practitioner’s network using Adobe Connect for their own virtual learning. I had a chance to show Chris the new Adobe Connect Mobile app and discuss its potential for mLearning.

One other note, day two keynote Nancy Duarte also showed screenshots of Adobe Connect during her keynote presentation, Resonate – Visual Stories That Transform Learners and Audiences. I was very happy to tweet about that!

Were you at ALS2011 or LS2011? Did we cross paths and, if so, did you see me cruising with or demoing on the XOOM? What was most memorable for you about the shows? Please let us know in comments or send me a message on Twitter.

Justin Mass, Senior Learning Technologist, Adobe (@jmass)

It’s not hard to understand why more organizations are looking to eLearning to help reduce the costs and lost productivity associated with travel for sales training. What comes as a surprise to many though is how expensive and time consuming it can be to create great eLearning content. It typically requires the involvement of subject matter experts, developers, artists, training managers, IT and more.

In the video below, I show a different approach. Rapid sales training combines the ability to very quickly create on-demand content with live virtual classrooms that provide a collaborative and engaging environment for students.

As businesses look to adopt solutions to make collaboration more effective, one key trend we continue to see is the use of video to replicate the in-meeting experience while attendees collaborate with each other from dispersed locations. There are several ways this can be achieved today, with solutions ranging from high-end video teleconferencing (VTC) systems focused entirely on video, to web conferencing solutions that enable more online interaction, webcam sharing, and, sometimes, video streaming. Selecting the right technology to replace in-person meetings begins with understanding your organizational needs and pairing those needs with the optimal conferencing solution. I’ll touch on the three key conferencing solution options currently available, but want to encourage you to dive more deeply via a white paper we’ve created on the subject (more on that later).

VTC
With VTC, presenters and participants can engage with one another through real-time, high-definition video and high-quality audio, providing everyone with close-up views of other meeting participants. Some solutions offer desktop add-on components, enabling users to present slides and share their desktops. When an organization is primarily focused on enhancing internal company meetings by adding the highest-quality video into the meeting environment and can regularly leverage the conference rooms where the technology resides, a VTC system can be an appropriate solution. There are some challenges with VTC solutions that should be considered, though, namely involving the investment and maintenance required, as well as the relative lack of key collaboration capabilities present with other solutions.

VTC with desktop add-on software
Desktop add-on software extends videoconferencing functionality to personal computers and provides basic conferencing components. Sometimes these systems are bundled with proprietary VTC system purchases. Functionality can include two-way or multipoint video, advanced audio, and screen sharing. However, advanced meeting features, as well as most training, event, and on-demand presentation capabilities, are not included. While the desktop add-on software works well for presenters and participants who have the licensed technology available on their computers, use of the software is typically limited to these individuals, and users can’t engage in on-the-fly meetings with people outside the organizations. Some other limitations exist, as well.

Web conferencing
Web conferencing, of course, includes video and audio components and also extends to a variety of features that enable more enhanced interaction through the desktop environment. If the main goal of a meeting is to facilitate teamwork, partnership, and collaboration among users both inside and outside of the organization, Web conferencing provides a good solution because of its interactive meeting features. It also runs on a variety of platforms, including desktop, laptop, and mobile devices, so it offers ease of use from any location. A Web conferencing solution is generally less costly than VTC systems because it’s software-based and leverages existing technology investments in computer hardware, laptop computers, and mobile devices. And some Web conferencing solutions—Adobe Connect among them—even enable integration with VTC solutions, allowing users to considerably broaden the reach of their core technology investments.

Again, in the end, it’s important for organizations to consider what their goals are for enhancing collaboration with video solutions, and what kind of solution will achieve optimal results.

We’ve recently posted a white paper that looks at this topic further, including the value Adobe Connect brings to bear. An interesting part of the paper is a total cost of ownership and ROI analysis across these different options, which valuates some of the pros and cons noted in this post and others. Check out the white paper here. And, as always, we’re interested in your thoughts, so please share in comments.

Rocky Mitarai
Adobe Connect Product Marketing Manager

Hello! Michael Londgren here. I look after product marketing for Adobe Connect at the company. Checking in today about the 2010 Gartner, Inc. “Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing”.

As we announced in late November, Adobe was positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of the research report. We were one of 15 vendors evaluated in the report.

Of those vendors positioned in the Leaders Quadrant, David Mario Smith of Gartner wrote in the report:

“Vendors in the Leaders Quadrant have achieved significant market share while demonstrating an ability to respond to customers’ needs. Leaders have robust, scalable products with a wide range of features, a large installed base, acceptable financial performance and good distribution. Leaders are doing well today and are prepared for the future.”

We encourage you to check out the complete report for yourself here (.pdf).

And you can learn more about Adobe Connect here.

Cheers,

Michael

 By Vincent Toesca, Group Product Manager, Adobe Connect

 Almost a year ago, I was discussing in another blog post the ascent of video as a way to enrich interpersonal communications.

This vision is increasingly becoming reality– at home and in the office. There’s not a day passing by without a new announcement around new video or “HD” capabilities by software vendors. What does it mean exactly for those in charge of selecting conferencing solutions? And how fast and how far will these new advancements reach everyday corporate users?

Removing complexity to drive usage

Videoconferencing has been characterized by complex endpoints and obscure acronyms (ISDN, VNOC, MPLS, QoS etc.) that have deterred quite a lot of casual users. No wonder that the utilization rate of these systems is typically less than 5% on a daily basis (source: Gartner, 2010). They also remain chiefly closed-loop systems, with more than 90% of all videoconferencing taking place among endpoints in the same enterprise But while these paltry numbers would give organizations little incentive to add more cost, risk and complexity to grow their video network, recent trends have marked a shift in the fortunes of videoconferencing.

Increasing reach even more than quality

The focus is moving from pure video quality to user experience, with an emphasis on reach and simplicity. The broader availability of camera-equipped devices and the popularization of online video through consumer services are reshaping the landscape. Here are a few usage and technological factors that are involved in this change:

• Software-based vs room-based: the dichotomy between VTC solutions (an expensive combination of endpoints, room systems, MCUs and services) and software-only video services is dissipating, with a gradual convergence of quality, and a faster expansion of the latter.  Meeting attendees who cannot reach a room and who are external to the organizations can participate from desktop- or web-based clients, with quality up to and including HD.
• Quality and bandwidth optimization: new IP video codecs (such as H.264) have dramatically improved video quality, without increasing bandwidth consumption. That is a prerequisite for IT departments, still wary of potential bandwidth overuse on their network. They also enable an experience that is rich and lifelike enough to endear end-users, who expect the fidelity of what they receive and broadcast to be high-quality and compelling. 
• Streaming and delivery: videoconferencing has moved almost completely to IP; all new video endpoints are IP-capable. But the coexistence of different protocols for establishing sessions (H.323, SIP), and the disparities in how well they allow video streams to traverse network firewalls, proxies and NAT, have constrained most organizations to use videoconferencing only internally. This is changing with the standardization on more firewall-friendly technologies, such a SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), and the delivery of new video services over managed networks and using SIP trunks.

Fulfilling promises for end-users and administrators alike

With our new Adobe Connect 8 release (now generally available), we have put a specific emphasis on high-quality, hassle-free visual communications. Being the first webconferencing solution offering robust video capabilities, our product had set the pace for bringing new digital experiences and interactions to enterprise customers.

• Deliver from multiple sources: a key new feature of Adobe Connect 8 is the ability to acquire a video stream from a SIP-based room system and broadcast it to all meeting participants present in an Adobe Connect room. Individual participants can also broadcast their own video feed, captured from a webcam. This truly achieves the converge of video streams into one single software-based solution, delivered at an infinitesimal cost over existing network infrastructures. 
• Deliver across screens: Adobe Connect delivers rich video features based on benchmarks set by the conferencing industry. The next challenge will be to optimize the video quality and resolution based on the properties of the receiving devices and increase video portability.  Beyond conventional desktops, the fast-growing penetration of smartphones and tablets with new form factors (e.g. front-facing cameras) and smaller footprint will drive this requirement. Adobe Connect has already embraced the need for accessing conferencing across screens, with mobile versions running on Google Android and Apple iOS; and other platforms are planned for the future.
• Deliver across network boundaries: here comes the foundational advantage of Adobe Connect, with the pervasive and firewall-friendly Adobe Flash platform. Battle-tested in the Internet space, where it supports about 80% of online videos, Adobe Flash provides a delivery mechanism that overcomes a lot of network barriers and improves the prospects for external calling. 

I once heard a senior executive joking about a telepresence meeting he had to attend: he spent over one hour driving to the venue where the telepresence meeting was hosted.  It was probably better than physically flying to the other coast for the meeting, but it certainly fell short of eliminating travel costs and travel time. With Adobe Connect 8 and its future iterations, we’re striving to enable a cost-efficient and user-friendly experience for video, universally delivered thanks to Adobe Flash.

Since its wider adoption by enterprises and organizations of various sizes, Web conferencing has represented a quantum leap compared with traditional audio-only conference calls. The online meeting experience creates a new level of participant engagement by adding rich data sharing (screensharing, collaborative review of documents) and interactivity tools (chat, live surveys, etc.). Higher participant attention raises the productivity of online meetings, while the combination of live sessions and on-demand access to learning contents increases the retention rate of training sessions administered through tools like Connect Pro.
Through periodic research interviews, we have found that many Connect Pro customers would characterize our solution as “the next best thing to a face-to-face meeting”. This is the result of constant innovation instilled into our product over seven releases to deliver a multi-dimensional environment.

While audio, text-based chat and data sharing are staples of web conferencing tools, video is the one dimension that has been relatively underutilized until now. Two major reasons explain this lower penetration: the slow proliferation of video devices, such as webcams, in the workplace, and the concern of systems administrators around bandwidth utilization. Another reason would be the earlier investment in room-based videoconferencing systems by corporations and the urge to use them as the primary conduit for visual communications, as a way to justify their high acquisition costs and the recurring expenses for servicing them.

From connecting rooms to connecting people

While room-based videoconferencing systems arguably provide good quality video, they have failed to do so in a scalable fashion, financially and operationally. Beyond the cost of installing and maintaining endpoints, IT/IS departments have realized that room-based systems are another complex layer to manage and to integrate with the rest of their communications infrastructure. On the other end, many corporate users often struggle with their sophisticated deployment and convoluted settings.

Leading vendors have recently touted a new generation of videoconferencing solutions, with “Telepresence”, emphasizing high quality at improved compression rates. However, these systems have not overcome the barriers that limit the widespread use of video: complex combination of hardware, software and additional room equipment; price points that make them an elitist solution and the privilege of a few. Finally they still follow the same metaphor consisting in connecting rooms, not users.

A study recently published by Gartner (November 10, 2009) portends that organizations are showing increased interest in video in general, and in video systems that are not bound to a room-centered experience in particular. They are pushing harder for desktop videoconferencing that has a lower cost structure, better reach and less dependence on appliances and infrastructure.

Seeing is believing

The video streaming capabilities provided by Connect Pro make it a strong substitute to supplant these systems down the road, and a much better fit for interpersonal communications. As webcams and built-in video devices are making strong headways into corporate environments, video will become the next frontier of web conferencing systems.

Release after release, and ahead of all competing products, Connect Pro team has supported and improved live video streaming to create more lifelike web meeting experiences and foster ad-hoc collaboration. Seeing the presenters of a webinar, or the instructor conducting a training session over Connect Pro, helps make a more impactful and lasting impression on the target audience.

Built on the Adobe Flash platform, Connect Pro leverages the leading streaming technologies developed by Adobe, currently used to deliver approximately 80 percent of Web video worldwide. Adobe Flash has been designed to provide high-quality streaming, at optimized bitrates, across firewalls. Bandwidth efficiency mitigates administrators’ network-related concerns while cross-firewall delivery extends video meetings to outside participants.

Mass adoption of video by enterprise customers is occurring gradually, but its pace is accelerating. It will increasingly rely on fully software-based videoconferencing solutions that offer lower-cost alternatives to legacy video systems with roughly equivalent levels of quality. With the ubiquitous Flash platform, Connect Pro possesses a foundational asset that we are leveraging as we evolve our webconferencing solution. Stay tuned for richer and more engaging interpersonal and collaborative experiences.

By Vincent Toesca