IOCOM brings different approach to managed videoconferencing

The business videoconferencing market has warmed up quite a bit of late, with a number of hardware vendors courting service providers with the gear needed to deliver managed video services. One company now courting service providers is offering a very different, software-based solution. Chicago-based IOCOM uses network-based software and off-the-shelf hardware and equipment to enable a videoconferencing service that embraces all endpoints, including – very shortly -- smartphones.

“Our product is IP-network centric,” said Hal Sullivan, managing director of IOCOM. The IOCOM software runs on servers in the network and on client devices and enables conferencing between all types of devices, from high-end telepresence-like rooms to office workstations, mobile laptops, H.323 appliances and individual phones that teleconference without video. “Shortly, we will be releasing the smart phone version of our client software,” Sullivan said. “We offer master license agreements for our software. We’re an alternative to a very complex environment of room-based systems and desktop systems and Web solutions – we are one solution for all of those.”

IOCOM has sold directly to businesses and counts among its customers BP and the UK National Health Service. “Our largest company is a major oil company with more than 600 individual systems– 400 room systems and 200 desktops,” said Jim Miller, executive vice president, sales and business development, for IOCOM. “Most of our large customers have upwards of 50 installations. The service providers are a new route to market for us. There is a segment of the small to mid-sized business and the large business market that buy through the enterprise groups of telecom service providers. We view that as a channel much like the audio-video integrators and the segment that buys direct are two different channels.”