From the Editor’s Desk: Seeing is believing

Interactive video has been in the popular imagination for many years. We saw it in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and in the early Star Trek television show. The reality was slow in coming, but now it’s here. When travelling, I frequently use Skype video to keep in contact with my family and friends. And organizations have begun to embrace enterprise class video systems to save time and lower travel costs. But the technology is still complex and, at times, very expensive. This stuff isn’t plug-and-play. That said, once it’s set up it can be remarkably reliable and easy to use. The question is: Is video right for you and your organization? First, we need to slow some of the spin. Mobile video has been getting a lot of talk; we check in to find that the carriers are playing catch-up (Mobile video lagging behind the hype) when it comes to business applications, though it may not be their fault – the use case scenarios are, so far, quite weak. Looks like mobile video may follow social media from the teenager to the board room. There is one area where video is changing the rules, and where it may set the standard for demanding, mission critical environments: healthcare. It is here that vendors and carriers are collaborating with some demanding users to make sure video systems work when and how they should. We take a look at the Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN), one of the largest telemedicine networks in world, to see how it’s done (Healthcare is video’s ultimate use case). We wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t put the vendors under a microscope (Video vendor round-up). And we come through too with some practical advice that digs deeper than the simplistic or vendor-driven messages found on the web (Video do’s and don’ts). As well, we prep you for Bill C-27, Canada’s new Electronic Commerce Protection Act (Staying compliant with new e-mail marketing legislation). And as always we have our monthly Next Gear column as well as our Regulation and Policy, Notebook, Security and Green sections (in our pdf version). With video, seeing may be believing, but there’s nothing like a good read.

From the Editor’s Desk: Seeing is believing

News | September 1, 2009

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