Conferencing Featured Article

April 28, 2011

LifeSize Passport Video Rooms Soon to be Skype-Friendly for Video Conferencing

By David Sims

TMCnet Contributing Editor

According to industry observer Stephen Lawson, thanks to a free forthcoming upgrade, users of LifeSize (News - Alert) Passport video rooms will soon be able to bring Skype (News - Alert) users in to video conferences.

Described as an integration between Skype and the mid-range high-definition video conferencing system, it “will allow many more people to participate in virtual meetings,” Lawson said.

“LifeSize claims Passport will be the first room-based video conferencing system that can work with Skype. But users will pay a price in quality for the convenience of linking up with Skype. All the participants will move to the lowest common denominator video quality, which falls short of HD,” said Lawson.

Recently TMC’s (News - Alert) Rajani Baburajan wrote that LifeSize announced the expansion of its video collaboration offerings through qualified interoperability with Microsoft (News - Alert) Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

LifeSize Team 220 is qualified within the Microsoft Office Communications Server platform. LifeSize is looking for qualifications for video systems such as LifeSize Passport, LifeSize Room 220 and LifeSize Express 220. The company is expecting that these products will achieve Microsoft qualification status in 2011.

Making Passport systems work with Skype makes sense for Logitech (News - Alert), the parent company of LifeSize, which as Lawson explained “has a presence in both ends of the videoconferencing business. In addition to room-based systems such as Passport and the higher end LifeSize Room platform, it makes webcams priced under $100.”

LifeSize sold an HD video conferencing system in 2005 for under $2,500, Baburajan noted, adding that according to LifeSize officials, “our commitment to innovation is realized today in yet another first delivering on our promise to reach true interoperability across UC platforms,” quoting Craig Malloy, chief executive officer of LifeSize and Logitech senior vice president.

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.

Edited by Tammy Wolf

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