A: We compete in three different areas with the rest of the solution providers in this space. The first is in the quality of the solution that you wouldn’t find with the rest of the providers. This is primarily because of the architecture that we have developed over the past six years. We have developed our own high definition cameras, hardware, chips, various algorithms for software, video, audio and communications. Even the user interface has been done by engineers at the company. I bet that even if users spend $500,000 on a Cisco telepresence solution they wouldn’t get the experience that is provided by our solutions.

The second factor is the flexibility of our systems. The price points of our product line start at under $5000 and they can be easily deployed at any bandwidth and network. The telepresence environment can be created wherever the customer wants it to. The third area is the development of low cost-high performance architecture of our systems.

A: A Cisco solution would help in building a dedicated video conference room. It would take $300,000 dollars for the installation at the least and would require 15 megabits of bandwidth plus ongoing service charge. It is a good experience but it is like a construction project.

With us, we can turn any room or place into a video conference room. These solutions should not only be available to the richest companies but also to SME knowledge workers across the globe.

Our solution would be a fraction of that cost and would range from $5,000 to $17,000 on the end-points depending on the various features that would be required by the customer. All that a customer needs, in addition to the end-point, is a high-definition display and a broadband Internet.

Recently, we conducted a video conferencing demonstration in front of 50 Indian CIOs in a hotel meeting room using two megabits of bandwidth from Mumbai to Texas with an open Internet call. The quality of the audio/video was flawless with zero packet loss.

I would also like to add that our primary competitors in the video conference room communication space are Polycom and Tandberg. Our products are half their costs with better performance.

A: Around six percent of our business revenues are outside the US. About 25 percent of our revenues are in the Asia Pacific region with India, China and Japan as key markets. In India, we have acquired around ten percent of the market share in about two and a half years.

Our customers in the country include Reliance Industries, ACC, KPMG, L&T, Patni Computers, Tata Elxsi and Wipro, among others.

A: Previously video communications systems were low resolution, low frame rate and ISDN-based solutions. The new technology today is full HD (high-definition) and full frame rate over IP networks with price points that are affordable for large as well as SME enterprises.

To create such products, there needs to be a willingness to take technical risks. This is the most important criterion in developing such products. At LifeSize we sit down, take a clean sheet of paper and draw the best pieces of technology from high definition cameras, digital imaging, technology used in digital music players, in high-definition television broadcast and such new technologies. Always remember that highly motivated companies are able to beat larger companies to market.

We succeeded in the market because we developed a generational leap-frog product that made other products in the market obsolete.

The video communication market has strengthened in the last few years. Greeen initiatives, lowering travel costs and all the marketing activities carried by Cisco have also helped us to grow. Cisco is offering systems that are costly and many customers cannot afford it.

Our VP marketing says that “we are the realisation of Cisco’s vision.”(Laughs)We actually deliver what they promise. They want to be our marketing arm, we are fine with it. (Laughs again).

In India, we have a carpet manufacturer that uses our system to link to trade shows hosted in the US. The video quality is good enough to see the quality of the texture and pattern of the carpet and the company has been able to sell carpets over video.

A: We couldn’t run LifeSize without video communications. If we make this, we have to use it. Our sales force team is a major user of these solutions. I normally do a press conference from my office, once a month. It has helped us not only to save costs but also travelling time.We also use video conferencing extensively to coordinate development between our design center in Bangalore and Texas.