Teambox Adds High-Definition Video Conferencing, Market Looks for Deeper Collaboration

Teambox has added high-definition video conferencing, adding to a list of providers that are adding video to their collaboration platforms.

The Teambox offering is of particular note, as it fully integrates video conferencing and screen sharing directly into the collaboration platform through Zoom, a video-conferencing service. The service allows for video conferencing of up to 25 people across desktops, tablets and mobile devices. It supports iCal, Outlook and Google Calendar.

Teambox has earned recognition for its capability to integrate third-party apps for an inline experience. It’s in some sense a framework for aggregating apps such as Box and Evernote.

But is it that much better than using third-party services in conjunction with a collaboration platform?

Tibco’s Tibbr activity stream product now integrates third-party web-conferencing tools. A customer can start a live meeting by choosing their own platform. The intent is to allow enterprises to leverage the platforms they have invested in.

So there are benefits to both ways of integrating video conferencing with a collaboration platform. Most of the services, such as Microsoft Office 365,  have integrated video conferencing, mostly as an add-on.

But the tide is shifting. Services such as Unison now offer video chat through WebRTC, the real-time communications technology that is native to the browser through a JavaScript API. Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera now support the open-source project.

Then there are the services like Pexip, which I looked at last week, which is making video conferencing available as a software.

In all of this, there is one theme. Video conferencing is now moving to software, making integration into collaboration services easier than ever before.