Text Reprint from the Wainhouse Research Bulletin, Volume 6 Issue #18 18-May-05, for pdf version with images, click here.

inSORS Grid 2 Launches

Chicago-based inSORS has released version 2 of its unusual visual collaboration solution, dubbed inSORS Grid 2 (IG2). IG2 is a client-server product that provides a single collaboration environment bringing together auditoriums, conference rooms, workspaces, video endpoints, PC endpoints, and/or telephones. IG2 expands on the capabilities of the first inSORS Grid with several important new features, including interoperability with ITU-standard H.323 videoconferencing systems; full-duplex audio with standard and wide band codecs; H.264 video compression; and secure NAT-firewall traversal. Unique to IG2 are the ability to optimally deliver 2.0+ million pixels of video; and record and archive voice, video, & data for playback.

Here’s What I Think

There are a lot of conferencing and collaboration products out there, but not too many span from the conference room to the desktop. And only a few have the flexibility of IG2 to bring in computers, phones, and video-conferencing systems into a single environment. There are lots of unique capabilities built into IG2, perhaps because the inSORS people come from a different planet and have a different way of looking at the problem, but two of them stick out in my own mind. 1) The single conference room system that I saw demo’d supported three cameras and three projectors. So each camera could zoom in on the conference room participants (there were six in my conference room, so each camera covered two persons) and provide large facial images for the remote viewers, rather than the typical videoconferencing setup whereby the single camera zooms out to include all the meeting participants, and then each person is reduced to a tiny image. The three overhead projectors were integrated into a single system, so the user could move video or data windows seamlessly around the wall. 2) Each end user has individual controls over the audio and video streams, able to control the volume of any other person in the call independently. I saw an IG1 demo seven or eight months ago. The team at inSORS has come a long way in audio video quality with IG2, while also adding some neat features, and of course the all-important interoperability with standard H.323 systems.

inSORS will be demonstrating IG2 at the Wainhouse Research Summit technology showcase in Boston on July 13. Additional details at www.wainhouse.com/wrsummit.

PDF version of the Actual Release