As video has become the expectation for business communication rather than the exception, we’ve seen delivery and consumption for all types of technology shift to subscription-based models. With this shift, enterprise buyers are increasingly gravitating away from capital expenditures toward more flexible operating expenses, particularly in times of economic uncertainty.

Today, in response to customer feedback and those market trends, Lifesize is announcing Lifesize Rooms-as-a-Service, the industry’s most robust, all-in-one, room-based offering from a single vendor.

6 people in a meeting room on a conference call with one person who is sharing a graphic on screen

Rooms-as-a-Service encompasses Lifesize’s leading video conferencing meeting room systems, cloud service, maintenance and support under more predictable pricing and with lower upfront costs. In fact, Lifesize Rooms-as-a-Service can lower total cost of ownership by 20–30% over a customer’s first two years of service.

The Standard-Bearer on Flexibility

Customer choice continues to be one of the core tenets of Lifesize’s business approach. To extend that philosophy with Rooms-as-a-Service, we’re already offering room configurations featuring the Icon 300™ (with Phone HD™ or Micpod) for huddle rooms as well as the Icon 500™ for small to medium-sized rooms, with more configurations to come. In addition, customers will have multiple payment options based on contract length.

To highlight another way Rooms-as-a-Service is unique among competitive solutions, I’ll call upon Craig Durr, senior analyst for Wainhouse Research:


“What is admirable about Lifesize’s strategy for Rooms-as-a-Service is that it not only aligns video conferencing devices to this operating expense (opex) model, it does so for rooms of all sizes. In addition, there are inherent benefits to having a single vendor for both cloud and devices-as-a-service, such as one point for support and billing.” 

— Craig Durr, senior analyst for Wainhouse Research


That single point of contact for technical hardware support and software updates is especially key for customers in managing, maintaining and growing their video conferencing implementations.

More Video-Equipped Meeting Rooms, More Quickly

The compelling price points for Lifesize Rooms-as-a-Service — starting at just $99 per room per month — grant IT buyers the ability to outfit and scale more meeting rooms more quickly, versus taking an incremental approach. Instead of paying for a full room system up front to start their Lifesize journey, a customer could split that investment and equip an additional meeting room or two for video from day one, as opposed to waiting for the next annual technology budget and purchase cycle to come around.

This, in turn, positions organizations to accelerate adoption of video and meet growing demand and expectations for video collaboration across the modern workplace. Importantly, throughout that adoption, a consistent meeting experience is preserved across all devices, spaces and modes of working, whether room-based, desktop or mobile.

Thinking Toward the Future

Lifesize Rooms-as-a-Service also preserves customers’ industry-low total cost of ownership that still covers them for automatic software updates, advanced hardware replacement, security, interoperability and a host of other benefits.

And with Rooms-as-a-Service’s predictable, transparent pricing, business leaders no longer have to reconcile unwieldy upfront investments in enterprise-grade technology with tricky cash flow considerations that so often stagnate tech scalability and rollouts. An added side effect of the Rooms-as-a-Service model is being able to retain funds for innovation and business growth initiatives, not forcing a tradeoff between those and communication infrastructure.

Rooms-as-a-Service represents a significant leap for Lifesize in terms of the way we conduct our own business and serve customers. In 2020 and beyond, we look forward to continuing to change the world of video conferencing and collaboration, one meeting space at a time.

Press Release: Lifesize Introduces Rooms-as-a-Service to Help Businesses Bring Video Collaboration to More Meeting Spaces