Changing Picture For Videoconferencing?


"Web conferencing seems to be eating the foundation out from under the videoconferencing business," said Phil Leigh, an analyst at Raymond James Financial Inc.

Leigh doesn't own any Polycom shares.

Web conferencing can blend a telephone conference call with an online meeting. Attendees can do things like watch a graphic presentation, type text messages to each other and make documents on their computers viewable to others.

Leigh says businesses aren't that interested in the talking heads of videoconferencing. Instead, they want to collaborate online - for instance, share a document while discussing it. In any event, major Web conferencing services such as WebEx can inexpensively incorporate video camera views of participants, Leigh notes.

The most basic video gear can cost a few dozen dollars. That's vs. several hundred for a higher-quality Polycom system. Too, Microsoft Corp. bought Web conferencing firm PlaceWare in January, suggesting that online collaboration is destined to go even more mainstream.

All this gives Leigh a sense of foreboding about videoconferencing.

"To me, Polycom and their principal competitor, Tandberg, are in the position of Digital Equipment and Data General. They were outmoded by the personal computer," he said. "The same thing is going on in videoconferencing. The reason is that Web conferencing supplies ubiquity."