Conferencing Provider Arkadin Moves Closer to Unified Communications with Vidyo Partnership

Customer demand for widespread access to personal telepresence and high quality, easy-to-use video meeting solutions and Web conferencing services has led Arkadin (News - Alert), which offers a full suite of remote collaboration and online events solutions, to sign a multi-year global agreement with Vidyo Inc., the first company to deliver personal telepresence.

As a result of the agreement, Arkadin is expected to distribute Vidyo's (News - Alert) award-winning desktop and room system-based video conferencing solutions in Europe, North America and Asia.

Arkadin's Audio and Web conferencing services have been very popular and are being used by over three million people every month, remotely. Its tested, remote collaboration services are easy to implement and use and this workflow drives efficiency and productivity by eliminating the constraints of location.

VidyoConferencing from Arkadin is currently available in France, Japan and the U.S., and will be rolled out globally in 2011.    

“Video has been part of our comprehensive collaboration solution since 2001 but only now, almost nine years later, are we experiencing real customer demand for widespread access to personal telepresence,” Olivier de Puymorin, founder and CEO of Arkadin, said. To cater to this demand, Arkadin extended its video capability by partnering with Vidyo to complement the existing voice and Web offerings. This would enable customers to work from anywhere with no disruption in video and audio interactions. 

Ofer Shapiro (News - Alert), CEO and co-founder of Vidyo believed that Arkadin was the perfect partner for Vidyo, even as it was continuing to expand its international reach and shift market toward next-generation solutions. He was confident that Arkadin customers would immediately reap the benefits of Vidyo's products and technology that would optimize the usage of existing devices and IP connections. By using a licensing model that removed the cost barrier and the burden of maintaining and upgrading systems, Vidyo’s SVC-based solution offered a level of quality, affordability and accessibility that was unmatched by any other videoconferencing solution. 

Gill Grevet, senior director of Mega International Corporation, a recognized specialist in enterprise architecture and governance who used the Arkadin-Vidyo solution, was able to see the difference between a static, room-based video system and the Arkadin-Vidyo offer, and said that user adoption within the company had increased dramatically when the teams realized its efficacy in enhancing collaborative experience and ease of use. 

Founded in 2001, Arkadin has operating centers in 26 countries throughout Asia, Europe and North America, offering. It enables organizations of all sizes to communicate and collaborate using customizable, cost-efficient, user friendly solutions.

Vidyo, Inc. pioneered Personal Telepresence (News - Alert) enabling natural, multi-point videoconferences on desktop computers and room systems, and leverages off-the-shelf Intel processing platforms across rooms systems, PC- and Mac- based desktops and laptops, net books and soon smartphones and tablets.

In a related news release, Vidyo, Inc., announced that it will support the latest version of Adobe's enterprise Web conferencing solution, Adobe Connect 8, with a “personal telepresence” plug-in that is being developed by Vidyo using Adobe Connect 8 Collaboration Builder SDK.

Mini Swamy is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Tammy Wolf