Gettin’ the Scoop from Partners and Panels: InfoComm 2012 Day 3 Wrap-Up

Day 3 of InfoComm 2012 was all about our partners.  I spent the morning doing a booth crawl to as many LifeSize partners as I could, interviewing them and talking about what they are exhibiting in their booths. Our partners are truly doing some fantastic things and it was great to chat with them and get the scoop.  You can see all of the interviews on our YouTube channel here.  If you like what you see, I highly encourage you to stop by their booths or “follow” them on social media.

Once I finished the booth crawl, I headed over to one last IMCCA panel, featuring many of the same video conferencing players we heard from yesterday. The panel was moderated by David Danto from IMCCA (@NJDavidD for those of you who tweet). I couldn’t believe this was the same group of guys we saw slinging mud the day before.  This discussion was genuine, thoughtful and really enlightening.  This is exactly the reason I wanted to attend panels, to hear true thought leadership and opinions from the top players in the industry, without pushing personal or corporate agendas. Here’s the recap:

IMCCA Panel Hot Topics:

• Unified Communications: The industry is still lacking a full UC solution (mainly because we are still trying to understand what that solution should be for an end user).  Both Simon Dudley from LifeSize and Mike Brandofino from AVI-SPL stated that we have to build solutions to fit the needs of individual customers. It’s not a “build it and they will come” situation.
• Industry Groups: The panel had a discussion around the benefits and missions of three industry groups, including the non-profit IMCCA group which has been around for many years and has over 3,000 end user members, the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF), also an industry group aimed at implementing standards across the industry, and OVCC, which is apparently more of a business venture according to a representative and requires a hefty fee to join (if I understood the explanation correctly).
• Trends for next year: Virtual infrastructure, gaming, interoperability and universal call lists were all mentioned.

Though I wrote this blog post on a plane back to Austin, I’ll still be connected to the conference tomorrow via the power of live video, and I’ve still got one final blog for you with lessons learned, favorite experiences and even a few tips for next year.

If you’re still at the show, be sure to stop by booth N1417 to say hi and check out our newest products.  Keep up with us at www.lifesize.com/social/infocomm2012.