Realize VoIP, May 2010

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In This Issue

• Editor's Note
• What's Next For The Desktop IM Client?
• Announcing BEEDESK
• Visual Communication Clients Everywhere
• Product News and Updates
• Community: Forum Subscription Options
• Blog Highlights
• In the Press
• Webinars and Events
• In Closing

Editor's Note

By Amir Zmora, VP Marketing

Your Desktop - that is the theme of this newsletter.

We have discussed HW-based video communications solutions in our blogs and newsletters, yet all this is incomplete without mentioning desktop-based video communications software clients. We have long provided a desktop-based video solution to our video conferencing customers: SCOPIA Desktop. We now also provide this capability as a high level and fully integrated developer solution, with our newly released BEEDESK.

Adding HD video communications capabilities to the desktop allows it to be combined with more communications capabilities, such as presence, instant messaging and collaboration, while taking advantage of the ease of use of the desktop and the content available on it. We are seeing a growing demand both among Service Providers and Enterprise solution vendors to provide comprehensive Unified Communications (UC) solutions to their customers, each with its own unique features combined with a fully featured UC solution.

By reading this newsletter you will learn more about this trend and how it can be realized for your needs.

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What's Next For The Desktop IM Client?

By Sharon Laivand, Product Manager

Child: "Doctor, my left eye is red an itchy, could you have a look at it?"

Doctor: "No problem, son. Please move closer to your web cam and press the GRAB PICTURE button."

[Two minutes later] "You have a tiny eye infection. I will email the prescription for the medicine you have to take to your mother. By the way, son: How do I copy an image to my memory stick???"

As internet users, we all use one or more of the instant messaging (IM) clients, such as Windows Live Messenger, Skype, Google Talk and ICQ.

Here are a few interesting facts and observations about IM clients:

• IM clients are much more than just IM clients.
• An incredible variety exists, with wide adoption on the public internet.
• Promising adoption not only on the public internet.

Much more than IM clients

Take Skype, for example. You can use it for many different purposes:

• IM/Presence
• Making voice/video calls
• Desktop/Application sharing
• Playing group games

So-called IM clients are actually powerful communication tools, which can be used to chat, talk, see, share documents, and more. I think that a name like "communication and collaboration software", rather than IM client, would better reflect the capabilities of these products. However, for the sake of this article let's just call them "collaboration clients'.

Incredible variety and adoption on the public internet

A quick look at Wikipedia's definition of Instant messaging reveals that reviews of various such products are given: dozens of collaboration clients are deployed, with hundreds of millions of people using them. Windows Live Messenger alone claims to have 330 million users!

Promising adoption, not only on the public internet

At RADVISION, we see an increasing demand for a collaboration engine -- that is, an engine for clients using high definition visual communication, application sharing and IM/Presence.

We see several patterns of customer demand emerging:

• The need for visual communication on the desktop.
• In many cases, the need for high definition (HD) visual communication.
• The ability to integrate a high level solution into their own application.

While the requirements we face are similar, the applications using our BEEDESK are amazingly diverse:

• Soft phones for operators: VoIP operators now also provide soft phones. This is an added value to their customers, who can use the operator's services from everywhere with the desktop soft-phone. In particular, operators that provide hosted solutions tend to offer soft phones.
• E-learning: e-learning applications with HD video and presentation sharing.
• Health care: remote doctors (see above...).
• Security: virtual inmate visitation system.
• Contact centers: video contact center, accessed from the company's website.

What's next?

We believe that many industry segments besides internet and internal enterprise communication will adopt the rich capabilities that desktop collaboration clients (not IM clients) offer. Finally, I would like to make a small correction to the first paragraph:

Child: "Doctor, my left eye is red an itchy, could you have a look at it?"

Doctor: "No problem, son. Please move closer to your HD web cam and press the GRAB PICTURE button."

Announcing BEEDESK

By Amit Lavi, Product Manager

RADVISION has just announced its High Definition desktop client framework (BEEDESK).

The BEEDESK Interactive Video Client is a complete framework for developing high definition video-enabled applications. BEEDESK answers the need to meet the market demand for cost-effective, integrated high definition video conferencing capabilities for any application.  BEEDESK offers developers a fast path toward high definition video telephony integrated with their application.

BEEDESK architecture

BEEDESK comprises various modules to provide a complete client framework offering:

• Signaling: BEEDESK supports SIP signaling and call control to enable all types of telephony functions as well as supplementary services, such as hold, mute, transfer, etc.
• Media & Codecs: BEEDESK integrates video and audio codecs with advanced algorithms, such as AEC, VAD and noise suppression. The H.264 video codec can go up to 720p@30fps. It is designed and optimized for Intel platforms to allow maximum performance.
• VoIP Client: The VoIP client layer is responsible for the integration of signaling and media as well as for providing high level APIs for the integration of applications. It is also responsible for interoperability with other endpoints.
• Sample GUI application: The sample GUI application provides developers with an out-of-the-box reference and an example of how to use the high level APIs. Developers can use the sample application as a starting point for their own application.

BEEDESK sample application

The next version of BEEDESK will support an additional signaling protocol (H.323), as well as additional video quality algorithms (SVC), which provide the ability to communicate with high quality video and audio even on unmanaged networks, such as the internet.

Visual Communication Clients Everywhere

By Tsahi Levent-Levi, Project Director & Community Facilitator

In the last several issues we announced a set of new products: BEEHD, BEEMOBILE and now BEEDESK. These client frameworks ease the work that developers have to invest in building their own communication applications for different types of environments:

• BEEHD is a solution targeted at high-end embedded video terminals.
• BEEMOBILE fits nicely into mobile devices - mainly smartphones and tablets.
• BEEDESK is designed to work on Intel-based platforms - PCs and laptops.

While these products are quite different in some of the features they provide and how they deal with media, they share a few common concepts:

1. Protocol agnostic - the APIs these products provide don't deal with protocols. Developers can deal with high level concepts instead of mucking around with the protocols.
2. Interoperability - they provide interoperability "out of the box" with other products, taking care of both media and signaling issues.
3. End-to-end - they are designed to integrate into video conferencing systems that are available today, which can be provided directly by RADVISION or by other vendors on the market.
4. Integration - they are easily integrated by customers into their existing products or new ones being developed.

These are important concepts, but the most powerful aspect of all is the fact that all three of these products are available to our customers. As video is becoming a common means of communication, the need to add video to multiple domains is a more and more frequent requirement from our customers.

We have been approached more than once by vendors looking for a video desktop solution today, with a need to build an embedded product a few months down the road. We can now offer such vendors a solution that will fit their client strategy and needs in all domains: desktop, mobile and embedded.

So if you need to develop a video client -- any kind of video client -- be sure to contact us.

Product News and Updates

We have a number of new product releases:

• In case you didn't know: BEEDESK is a new product we just released.
• SIP Server version 3.6 has been released. This newest version has multi-core optimizations as well as SIPConnect support.
• BEEHD version 2 has been released. This version comes with support for H.323, H.239 and SVC.
• The Multimedia Terminal Framework reached version 4.1 and now supports both SIP and H.323, as well as data collaboration using H.239.
• Our Advanced RTP version 3.6 has been released.

These new versions are available to customers under maintenance agreements.

Community: Forum Subscription Options

By Tsahi Levent-Levi, Project Director & Community Facilitator

Here's a small thing we've added to the community forums: from now on, you can get updates about new messages by email. This enables you to know when messages that might interest you are available so you can be updated immediately.

There are three ways to use this new feature:

1. Subscribe to messages on a specific thread when you post your message.

When you post a message in our forums, you now have the option to be notified by email about new messages posted on the same thread. To enable this option, check the checkbox below the message body.

2. Subscribe to a thread you don't want to post on.

There are times when you might like to be kept informed about an interesting discussion on a forum thread you don't want to actively participate in. To this end, we've added a large Subscribe button to the top of each thread page.

3. Subscribe to the whole forum.

You're currently developing your SIP product and need to know of all the ins and outs about it. Why not subscribe to the whole SIP development forum? You can now do so from the main page of the forum. Just look for the same Subscribe button that is also found on threads.

So you see - keeping updated just got a lot better. If you wish, you can always unsubscribe later from receiving further messages on any of the forums or threads you've subscribed to, so you don't need to worry about being overwhelmed.

Blog Highlights

Here's a quick glance at some interesting recent blog posts on our blog network:

• Conversations: Ever wanted to be a fly on the wall? Ran Arad tries his hand in it.
• Video service: Sagee Ben-Zedeff shares the RADVISION case study about using visual communication.
• Customers: Tsahi Levent-Levi in a Q&A with a customer: Seowon Intech and their VoIP over WiMAX project.

Here are two more posts that have interested our readers in the past two months:

• Kfir Pravda explains his recent experience working with video conferencing and where he believes we should be headed next.
• Tsahi tries to explain the ramifications of the iPhone OS 4.0 video chat support rumors.

We have started to publish a comic strip related to the video conferencing industry on one of our blogs. Here's the first one we published:

In the Press

• RADVISION Announces its Support For Google Android OS

Webinars and Events

Where and When?

Developers APAC Roadshow

The annual APAC roadshow will take place during May this year, and we will be splitting it into two in terms of the countries that will be covered.

This year, our main theme is HD visual communication for the masses. We plan to provide an overview of the visual communications market and demonstrate how HD video capabilities can be added to embedded and PC-based Consumer Electronic Devices using RADVISION's advanced video client frameworks.

Webinar: LTE - The Future of IMS

Today's world is one of wireless, mobile broadband and always-on services and applications. We have new devices in different shapes and forms, such as mobile devices, tablets and netbooks. The introduction of LTE (Long Term Evolution) is the technology behind the compelling user experience required for their success. New industry initiatives, such as VoLTE and VoLGA, are allowing for real-time multimedia communication, yet there are many challenges for realizing this technology.

The webinar will discuss the future of voice and SMS services, supplementary and Advanced Services in the era of all IP mobile networks, network architecture issues and interconnectivity with Legacy and current 2G and 3G access. Register online now.

Webinar: UC with High Definition Visual Communications for the Masses

Watching every expression in your peer's face can indeed improve the way you communicate, and this is the reason for the increasing demand for High Definition (HD) visual communications and data collaboration. While HD visual communications' advantages are clear, HD systems involve increased costs and technology barriers. Register online now.

Webinar: Voice and Video over IP Communications: Assessing and Improving User Experience 

While video deployment over IP is experiencing a significant boom, overall user experience does not always live up to expectations. RADVISION experts will discuss unique, no-reference, video measurement and analysis algorithms that improve user experience for voice and video over IP communications. Register online now.

Webinar: The Hidden Challenges of Developing HD Visual Communication Products

When dealing with high definition visual communication products, developers tend to focus on selecting the right hardware and optimizing the codecs and media paths that can handle the high CPU load that HD entails. Savvy developers will take steps to manage the large number of additional tasks that make an HD visual communication product.

In this webinar, we will outline and explain the hidden challenges and additional tasks developers need to handle when dealing with HD. Register online now.

Interop Tokyo 2010

If you are in Tokyo in June, we invite you to visit us at Interop Tokyo, taking place during June 9-11 at Makuhari Messe. Booth 4D28.

We will be there showing our developer solutions with a focus on the BEE line of products, targeted at video clients.

Customer Satisfaction Survey

Your opinion matters to us. If you are (or were) a RADVISION customer of any of our developer tools, we would appreciate if you would complete our Customer Satisfaction Survey. It will only take a few minutes of your time and would help us a great deal. We will leave the survey open for you to fill in at your leisure. But why wait? Take the survey now.

Past Webinar: SIP Beyond Telecom

SIP as an extensible protocol and with the general event-notification mechanism defined in RFC 3265, as well as other activities in the IETF, can be used for many purposes other than pure voice and video communications. View our webinar online to learn how SIP can be utilized for non-telecom applications in varying industries and segments, such as transportation, cars and medical.

Past Webinar: Carrier Grade IMS Developer Solutions from Core Network Infrastructure to Endpoint Devices

This web seminar reviews the challenges and opportunities of the development of next generation network elements. Speakers will discuss software building blocks, from the carrier grade open platform foundation to the underlying IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) for building infrastructure and endpoint devices.

View our webinar online to gain insight into a development trend to improve time-to-market through the adoption of a scalable common platform for multiple network elements.
(Presented jointly by RADVISION and Wind River)

Past Webinar: HD Video Conferencing to the Masses

High Definition video has become the standard in most venues of media, yet it is still uncommon in video communications. Though the necessary technology is available, the complexity and cost of building an HD video solution is substantial. In RADVISION's online webinar, you can learn how the RADVISION BEEHD offers a framework for developing economical HD video communication products while bypassing existing challenges. You are invited to register and view the webinar online.

In Closing

This newsletter aims to be useful to you. If you are not finding any value, tell us how we can improve. For more information from RADVISION, you are invited to follow the links below:

• Read our blogs: http://blog.radvision.com
• Join our community: http://community.radvision.com
• Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/radvision

Thanks for reading our newsletter!

RADVISION's Community Team

http://www.radvision.com