September 25, 2014
Xorcom Bridges the Gap Between Legacy Videoconferencing and Remote, BYOD Users
By
Laura Stotler
TMCnet Contributing Editor
Enterprise videoconferencing can be a tricky proposition, particularly for small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs). Many corporate conferencing solutions carry a high price point as well as proprietary accessories and software, all of which must be carefully updated and maintained throughout a company and its remote users.
These types of systems simply aren’t practical for smaller companies on tight budgets who often have employees and customers scattered throughout the globe. And yet Skype and other consumer video applications are typically not robust or reliable enough for SMBs to depend on. That’s where Xorcom’s (News - Alert) multipoint conferencing units (MCUs) come in, and they are designed to bridge the gap between expensive legacy equipment and today’s BYOD business climate.
TMC (News - Alert) Marketing Director Jennifer Terentiuk had an opportunity to speak to Martin Pladgeman, president of Xorcom U.S., at the recent ITEXPO (News - Alert) 2014 in Las Vegas. The company demonstrated its Orion VX1000 MCU at the show, a product of Xorcom’s technical alliance with Surf Communications Solutions. The offering combines video streams from a typical on-premises videoconferencing system with video streams from PCs, tablets and phones to bring videoconferencing to remote users and to extend the usability of expensive room systems.
“Normally they’re all proprietary and they don’t really allow you to have remote users,” said Pladgeman of typical legacy on-premise systems. “Using the MCU, you can still use the room system but bring in remote people to join the conference, so it brings a lot more value to your existing investment.”
He added that there aren’t any other mid-range solutions on the market that really bridge the gap between on-premises systems and remote users for the SMB and mid-market. The MCU may be deployed on premises or in a hosted or managed configuration and supports any SIP, H.323, H.239 endpoint or soft client.
Xorcom offers a whole range of MCUs as well as the XV3000 IP-PBX with built-in videoconferencing running on Asterisk (News - Alert). Pladgeman said the company also plans to integrate WebRTC into its offerings. Xorcom debuted its Blue Steel IP-PBX line at ITEXPO 2014 Miami earlier this year, combining VoIP and PSTN connectivity.
Edited by Maurice Nagle