Vidyo

Last updated
Vidyo, Inc.
TypePrivately Held
IndustryVideo Communications,
Founded2005;18 years ago (2005)
Headquarters Hackensack, New Jersey
Key people
Reuben Tozman (General Manager), Dr. Alex Eleftheriadis (Chief Scientist & Co-Founder)
ProductsPersonal Telepresence systems, embedded video communications, videoconferencing endpoints & infrastructure, video chat, cloud services and APIs
RevenueIncrease2.svg $60 Million(2019)
Number of employees
120
Website www.vidyo.com

Vidyo, Inc., founded as Layered Media, now part of Enghouse systems provides software-based collaboration technology and product-based visual communication products. [1] The company's VidyoConferencing products are the first in the videoconferencing industry to take advantage of the H.264 standard for video compression, Scalable Video Coding (SVC). [2]

Contents

The firm's implementation of this technology enables video communication across general purpose IP networks. [3]

History

Vidyo was founded by Ofer Shapiro, [4] who had developed the first IP video conferencing bridge and programmable gatekeeper technology at Radvision. [5] He left Radvision in early 2004 to develop improved video conferencing networks. Packet loss and latency that accompanies general purpose IP networks posed significant challenges to the existing systems. Costly dedicated networks and expensive Multipoint Control Units (MCU), which exacerbated delay due to transcoding or forced all endpoints to conform to the least common denominator endpoint quality, were the only products the industry had to offer at that time. He realized that to take advantage of state of the art H.264 compression technology, the fundamental technology behind video conferencing systems had to change Shapiro's efforts resulted in a paradigm shift for the video conferencing industry - a new system architecture. It was based upon Scalable Video Coding (SVC) which allowed for error resiliency which was absent in monolithic encoding schemes that were common throughout the industry. [6] Implementation of SVC for only some system components offered little value. The full benefit of SVC required re-designing both the endpoint (client) and MCU (server), a costly and time-consuming proposition for incumbent providers of video conferencing systems. Unencumbered by a legacy product line, Shapiro developed a new architecture in which the MCU was replaced with a low-cost router and all of the encoding and decoding was done at the end points.

At the end of 2004, Shapiro obtained support from Avery More [7] in early 2005; and secured seed funding by October 2005, led by on Bayless [8] of Sevin Rosen Funds. Operating in stealth mode through the beginning of 2007, Shapiro's team created a video conferencing product with HD quality video, that effectively addressed the interactivity inhibiting delay common in legacy systems, and enabled each end point to send and receive at its highest quality levels, irrespective of the other end points and the network. Layered Media licensed its technology to its first OEM customers early in 2007.

In June 2007 Layered Media secured series B funding, [9] [10] with Rho Ventures joining in to lead the round. Shortly after Layered Media changed its name to Vidyo, Inc.

By the beginning of 2008, Vidyo emerged from stealth mode with a product offering for the enterprise market and an annual licensing price model. [11]

In the first quarter of 2009, Vidyo raised another round of funding, led by Menlo Ventures joining Rho Ventures, Sevin Rosen Funds, and Star Ventures. [12]

In early April 2010, the company announced another $25 million from their Series C round of financing, bringing the total amount of capital raised by the company to $63 million since its founding in 2005. All existing investors, Menlo Ventures, Rho Ventures, Sevin Rosen Funds and Star Ventures, participated in the round, which was led by Four Rivers Group.

In May 2010, Vidyo launched its Software Development Kit (SDK), enabling developers to build multipoint video conferencing applications into Android and Moblin-based smart phones and tablets running Intel Atom Processor Z6xx series-based platforms (formerly Moorestown) and on ARM processor-based platforms.

In June 2010, at Infocomm in Las Vegas, Vidyo demonstrated the first videoconferencing system to attain 1440p (decode), at 2560 x 1440p resolution, in an HD multiparty video conference via general purpose IP networks.

A few days later, the company announced a partnership [13] with HP to expand the HP Halo portfolio to include conference room and desktop endpoints that run on enterprise networks.

In May 2012, Vidyo announced a fourth round of funding securing $22.5 million bringing the total amount invested to $97 million. [14]

In April 2013, Vidyo announced a fifth round of funding securing $17.1 million bringing the total amount invested to $116 million. [15]

In March 2016, Vidyo integration was added to KioWare Kiosk System Software, creating a video conferencing kiosk solution. [16]

On May 15, 2019 it was announced that Vidyo, Inc. was acquired by Enghouse Systems Limited (TSX:ENGH) for a purchase price of approximately $40 million. Vidyo's current annual revenue is approximately $60 million. [17]

Products

Video-chat service for Nintendo's Wii U game console was co-developed with Vidyo, Nintendo European Research & Development and Nintendo Software and Nintendo Software Technology. VidyoRouter is an appliance that performs the packet-switching function. The VidyoPortal is a Web-based environment used to access and manage the VidyoConferencing system and accounts from anywhere with internet access. VidyoDesktop is a software-based endpoint, managed via VidyoPortal, able to support HD quality video. HD-200 is a High Definition room system endpoint. The HD-100 is an entry level High Definition room system endpoint. Both of these products are managed by the VidyoPortal and interoperate with VidyoDesktop users.[ citation needed ]

VidyoGateway is an appliance used to connect legacy video conferencing systems with the VidyoConferencing network. The VidyoCampus Program is used by colleges and universities to deploy the system to every desktop throughout their collaboration community. VidyoHealth is a scalable high-definition telemedicine product that uses the public Internet and existing general purpose IP networks at medical facilities for doctor-patient and doctor-doctor interactions.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol used for initiating, maintaining, and terminating communication sessions that include voice, video and messaging applications. SIP is used in Internet telephony, in private IP telephone systems, as well as mobile phone calling over LTE (VoLTE).

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for voice calls, the delivery of voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tandberg</span> Defunct electronics manufacturer

Tandberg was an electronics manufacturer located in Oslo, Norway and New York City, United States. The company began in the radio field, but became more widely known for their reel-to-reel tape recorders as well as cassette decks and televisions. The original company went bankrupt in 1978, after a sharp financial downturn. The following year, the company re-formed whilst their data division was split off as Tandberg Data, including the tape recording division, which reduced its scope to data recording.

CU-SeeMe is an Internet videoconferencing client. CU-SeeMe can make point to point video calls without a server or make multi-point calls through server software first called a "reflector" and later called a "conference server" or Multipoint Control Unit (MCU). Later commercial versions of CU-SeeMe could also make point-to-point or multi-point calls to other vendor's standard H.323 endpoints and servers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Videotelephony</span> Real-time video communication

Videotelephony is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real-time communication. A videophone is a telephone with a video camera and video display, capable of simultaneous video and audio communication. Videoconferencing implies the use of this technology for a group or organizational meeting rather than for individuals, in a videoconference. Telepresence may refer either to a high-quality videotelephony system or to meetup technology, which can go beyond video into robotics. Videoconferencing has also been called visual collaboration and is a type of groupware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radvision</span> Israeli telecommunication company

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poly Inc.</span> American multinational corporation

Poly, formerly Polycom, a part of HP Inc., is an American multinational corporation that develops video, voice and content collaboration and communication technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">H.323</span> Audio-visual communication signaling protocol

H.323 is a recommendation from the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) that defines the protocols to provide audio-visual communication sessions on any packet network. The H.323 standard addresses call signaling and control, multimedia transport and control, and bandwidth control for point-to-point and multi-point conferences.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scopia</span> Series of videoconferencing products

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lifesize</span>

Lifesize is a video and audio telecommunications company in the United States which provides high definition videoconferencing endpoints and accessories, touchscreen conference room phones, a cloud-based video collaboration platform, and omnichannel contact center solutions under their CxEngage product line. Lifesize's headquarters is located in Austin, Texas. Its Europe, Middle East and Africa regional office is located in Munich, Germany.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Illusive Networks</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boaz Raviv</span>

Boaz Raviv, born on April 1, 1961, is a French-Israeli CEO with extensive experience in the multinational technology sector. Throughout his career, he has held executive positions in various renowned companies. Notably, Raviv served as CEO at Attenti and Radvision. He also held the position of General Manager of Business Units at AVAYA, Radvision, Elron Telesoft, and made contributions as a development engineer at Capgemini. Since 2001, Raviv has actively engaged in investment, consulting, and mentoring activities, with a particular focus on high-tech companies.

References

  1. "Google Taps Vidyo For Enterprise Hangouts" Forbes . February 6, 2014.
  2. Thomas Wiegand interview on SVC
  3. "Vidyo, Inc". Archived from the original on 2009-02-21. Retrieved 2009-05-08.
  4. "Vidyo Management Profiles". Archived from the original on 2009-03-04. Retrieved 2009-05-08.
  5. Ofer Shapiro, ITU-T Standards Modification Request, February 1997
  6. "Andrew W. Davis,"One on One with Layered Media CEO Ofer Shapiro," The Wainhouse Research Bulletin, Vol.7#31, August 31, 2006" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 17, 2011. Retrieved May 8, 2009.
  7. Eureka Ventures Profiles
  8. Jon Bayless Profile
  9. Vidyo Series B Funding Press Release
  10. Heather Clancy, "Meet Via Video," Entrepreneur.com, December 2008
  11. "Andrew W. Davis,"Vidyo Emerges from Stealth Mode," The Wainhouse Research Bulletin, Vol.9#4, January 31, 2008" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on November 30, 2010. Retrieved May 8, 2009.
  12. "Andrew R. Hickey, "Vidyo Secures $15M in Funding," Channel Web, March 5, 2009". Archived from the original on February 24, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2011.
  13. HP: Vidyo Alliance Previews Major Video Channel Offensive
  14. "Vidyo Boosts Series D With Investment From Juniper Networks - Arik Hesseldahl - News - AllThingsD".
  15. "Vidyo Raises $17 Million in Round Led by Triangle Peak - Arik Hesseldahl - News - AllThingsD".
  16. "Video Conferencing Kiosks". Kioware.com. Retrieved 2017-12-10.
  17. "Enghouse Systems Acquires Vidyo, Inc" (PDF).