SI: Sony Adds Another To The IPELA Line Of Video Conferencing With The PCS-XG55

[Christopher]

In response to the high demand for HD video conferencing in the Asia Pacific region, Sony announced that it is introducing its latest generation HD visual communication system, the PCS-XG55. Part of the IPELA family from Sony’s current HD PCS series systems lineup, the PCS-XG55 HD incorporates the functions and features of Sony’s existing high-end, PCS-XG80, developing an enhanced video communications platform that is flexible for the education, healthcare, government and corporate environments.

According to Frost & Sullivan, Asia Pacific is expected to contribute $1.7 billion to the video conferencing market, which is poised to grow into a $4.7 billion-dollar industry by 2014 worldwide. In India alone, the video conferencing market is growing 23 percent year-on-year due to the growing demand from the government sector, which leans towards more affordable and lower bandwidth-compatible systems. As a result, India is becoming the fourth largest market for video conferencing equipment.

“Despite the softening of the market elsewhere, there is great demand in the Asia Pacific region for HD video conferencing,” said Yoshikazu Hirano, General Manager, Business & Professional Products Asia Pacific (BPPA). “Currently, HD deployment in video conferencing has not matured and this presents a lucrative market opportunity for Sony. In response, we are making our PCS-XG55 available in March to provide customers a high-quality HD video conferencing experience.”

Although the video conferencing industry is filled with SD endpoints, Sony expects to see a marked improvement in the HD visual communication system in the very near future, with estimated revenues projected to increase by more than four times in 2010 from 2007.

To ride the changing trend, Sony’s PCS-XG55 is designed to be both HD and SD compatible. This enables enterprises’ to tailor their business needs with affordable price and lower investment in bandwidth compared to the high-bandwidth requirements for high-end (maximum 1080p) HD visual communication systems.

However, the true experience of customers’ equipped with a HD video conferencing system (minimum 720p) will be largely affected by peers, who send poor quality video signals and low-resolution pictures from low-end endpoints.

Sony IPELA PCS-XG55 HD visual communication system will be competitively priced and available for shipping in March 2010 in the Asia-Pacific region, and possibly other markets too.

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