I think most people would agree video conferencing had a good year in 2009 - relative to other av technologies that is i.e. it showed a small drop in sales rather than 20 per cent+ drop like projectors & plasma/LCDs
The reasons for this? well swine flu and the recession have to take some credit - people just didn't want to/couldnt afford to travel, and spending £5000 for an HD vcon system (a price lower than it's ever been) stacked up as a pretty good investment against a travel budget of £50,000/£100,000/£200,000.
So I was mystified when Wainhouse Research reported Sony had decided to pull out of video conferencing in EMEA (it has already done the same in N America).
Far be it for me to dictate Sony's corporate policy (I wouldn't know where to begin quite frankly) but the video conferencing market in 2010 looks quite attractive to me because;
1) There aren't a huge amount of players in this market (even less so after the Cisco/Tandberg deal), so the competition doesn't seem hugely stifling
2) Cisco are about to spend millions advertising the technology to ALL sectors following it's purchase of Tandberg (i'm sure Logitech will spend some marketing cash as well after buying LifeSize), so other manufacturers will reap the benefits of that
3) the recession isn't going to go anywhere to quickly, at least not in the 1st half of 2010, so travel budgets will still remain frozen
Also, Sony already makes screens and video cameras so it's in a good place to provide the whole package without too much added cost. The Ziris digital signage system (using PS3's as processor units) has already shown Sony is well capable of utilising it's full product base.
I expressed this bewilderment to someone from Sony at BETT last week but was met with a response so heavy with spin it would make Malcom Tucker proud. Added to that I have spoken to at least one angry Sony dealer, upset at the decision and the way it was communicated, given the time & effort they have put in promoting Sony's vcon products.
