The market for desktop teleconferencing solutions is poised to take off, fueled by the continuing declines in cost, improvements in quality, and the need for business solutions configured as personal computer add-on devices. Although all segments of the videoconferencing market are covered, this study focused primarily on two application areas: desktop videoconferencing (DVC) and data conferencing (audiographics), PC- based teleconferencing solutions which make it easier to work collaboratively while being physically distant.
             The market for teleconferencing products will benefit from social and environmental factors which are making it more attractive and more acceptable to work at home, to telecommute part time, or to work in a remote corporate office or telecommuting center. These factors are not prime driving factors for videoconferencing, but videoconferening will benefit from the computer and communications infrastructure which telecommuting will cause to be built.
             Overriding all of the technology advances detailed in this report, however, is the fact that videoconferencing will not become a widespread application unless it meets a widely perceived need. There is indeed a danger that videoconferencing will always be the market opportunity of the future, particularly for industrial and business use. Even with a more mobile workforce, with more people telecommuting and telecomputing, and with today's emphasis on workgroups and collaboration, businesses are still unsure about the general benefits of videoconferencing. There is still a better-than-even probability that two-way, video-enabled personal communications will never reach the corporate mainstream.
             Forward Concepts' research has uncovered several important trends in the teleconferencing industry which make it likely that different segments of the audiographics and videoconferencing markets will have far different growth rates and patterns. Overriding all of the marke...