Responding to the market shift that most mobile computers have cameras, Internet video provider SightSpeed, Inc. (DEMO 04) of Berkeley, CA today introduces the first simultaneous nine-way video conferencing and text chat. The service costs $19.95 a month/$240 per person a year, and lets Windows, Macintosh, and Linux users interact with each other, the company said.
Besides improving video capabilities, the new version of SightSpeed Business includes new audio codecs, which mean enhanced wideband audio for conferences, array microphones, and improved performance for Windows Vista users.
"Video is king," said Eric Quanstrom, SightSpeed's vice president of marketing. "Audio is not a selling point with most companies but it is for us. Audio matters more than most people think it does. When audio is good, people think the video is better. I think that's why we've won as many awards as we have."
The company, founded in 2001 out of a Cornell University lab, is backed by an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from The Roda Group of Berkeley, and is currently in discussions with venture capitalists for an undisclosed Series B round, Quanstrom said. The round is expected to close this summer.
Three years ago, very few desktop or mobile computers in businesses were equipped with cameras. Today real-time connective video via the Web is more than a $1 billion industry, according to market researcher IDC. (Disclosure - IDG owns IDC and DEMO). Nearly 75% of all mobile computers - often used by "road warriors" - come with cameras. With gas prices rocketing, Internet video conferencing should get more popular, Quanstrom said.
With competitors, such as Polycom, Viditel (Santa Cruz Networks), First Virtual Corp., and Eyeball Networks, offering six to eight-way conferencing, SightSpeed ratcheted up its award-winning 2007 four-way video conferencing to nine-way video conferencing aimed at small- and medium-size businesses and businesses with "remote" employees.
SightSpeed Business requires only consumer broadband, while other business-grade, multi-party video conferencing services typically require dedicated, high-capacity bandwidth – often T1 and above – or a co-located server. The new version of SightSpeed Business also lets users without built-in or plug-in Webcams and microphones on their mobile or desktop computers can participate in nine-way conferences using voice or text. No extra hardware is needed to use SightSpeed Business.
People are also use SightSpeed for video mail. SightSpeed to SightSpeed calls are free whether video, voice, or text. Besides video conferencing competitors, SightSpeed competes with Seesmic, Microsoft, Google, Skype, and other companies with instant messaging hybrids. The 25-employee, privately-held company said it negotiated low usage rates because of the call volume it produces, but declined to reveal its installed base.
Product features include:
- Video-on-Top – SightSpeed allows participants the ability to put the video screen on top of or adjacent to other files to enable multitasking.
- The Administrative Console provides the ability to add, change, and manage users centrally.
- Recording video/audio of conferences – For file-keeping, subsequent sharing with non-participants or Webinars, conference proceedings may be recorded with one click. Conferences can be recorded in multiple formats.
- File sharing – Users can share and discuss any document or file, seeing it and all participants at the same time.
- Multi-party text chat – During nine-way conference calls, all participants have a continuous chat channel for asking questions, embellishing points, or multi-tasking.
- Unlimited video calling and text chat
- Video e-mail – Users may record video messages up to five minutes long and send them to any e-mail inbox; works with all major e-mail software, plus unlimited storage of video e-mail.
- Custom Click-to-Call links – Users may embed click-to-call buttons on their Web pages or e-mail signatures to give other SightSpeed users the ability to start video, voice or chat sessions instantly.
- Free, unlimited computer-to-computer voice calling.
- Voice calling to telephone numbers worldwide at prices typically lower than standard long-distance. For example, average rate in the U.S. is two cents a minute.
- New users get 500 free calling minutes in the U.S. or Canada.
- Detailed call history
- Multi-user licensing
- One-click invitations to clients or colleagues to join conference calls.
SightSpeed's 2007 product won these awards: PC World's "100 Best Products of 2007," Frost & Sullivan's 2007 "Company of the Year," and PC Magazine's "Editors' Choice."
