Digital consultations have become a standard part of many service offerings. In healthcare and beyond, clients increasingly expect appointments to be available online when needed. For software providers, this raises an important question: how can video communication be integrated in a way that feels like a native part of the product instead of an external add-on?

HealthAdvisor Group AG, a leading Swiss provider of practice management software for therapists, faced exactly this challenge. The goal was to extend the existing application with video consultations without introducing additional platforms or complexity. At the same time, operating the solution in Switzerland was an important factor, as it aligns with the location and regulatory environment in which HealthAdvisor itself operates.

Focusing on a Clearly Defined Use Case

In daily practice, therapists use HealthAdvisor to manage appointments, documentation, and billing. The software forms the backbone of their workflow.

The objective was to extend this existing process with a video consultation feature. Sessions needed to be available as online appointments without requiring separate logins or switching to an external platform. Moving from scheduling to video consultation had to feel like a natural continuation of the same workflow.

The goal was not to introduce a standalone meeting platform, but to embed video functionality directly into the existing application experience.

Implementation with Veeting Rooms

To implement this, HealthAdvisor selected Veeting Rooms, a Swiss-developed video solution by Veeting AG. The platform has been developed and operated in Switzerland since 2014 and is designed as a standalone video infrastructure. Through open APIs and an SDK, it can be integrated seamlessly into existing applications.
HealthAdvisor uses these APIs to manage video consultations directly from within its software. Meeting links are automatically generated, displayed in the application, and included in appointment confirmations sent to clients.

Veeting Rooms provides the video infrastructure in the background, while HealthAdvisor retains full control over scheduling and user management within its own system. This allowed the integration to be implemented without major changes to the existing architecture.

Whitelabel as an Extension of the Product

An important aspect of the solution was the ability to offer video consultations under HealthAdvisor’s own brand. Sessions are conducted as “HealthAdvisor Video Call,” with no visible reference to Veeting.

The interface, colors, and navigation are aligned with HealthAdvisor’s existing design. Even the domain reflects the company’s own environment rather than redirecting users to an external platform. For both therapists and clients, the experience appears as a fully integrated solution.
Because users already trust HealthAdvisor as their primary software provider, that trust naturally extends to the video consultation feature.

Collaboration and Local Context

Beyond the technical implementation, the collaboration between the two companies played an important role. Requirements could be aligned directly, and feedback from real-world usage was incorporated quickly. Short decision cycles and direct communication between teams helped streamline the process.

Operating the solution in Swiss data centers, combined with clearly defined contractual responsibilities, provided transparency around data processing and compliance. Both companies operate within the same regulatory environment, which simplified alignment on data protection requirements.

Conclusion: Video as Part of the Product

The HealthAdvisor case shows that video communication in specialized applications does not need to exist as a separate platform. The real value comes from embedding it directly into the product experience.

In this setup, Veeting Rooms acts as the underlying video infrastructure rather than a standalone collaboration tool. This allows software providers to offer digital services under their own brand without building and operating a video platform themselves.

Webinars play a crucial role in contemporary business communication. However, transitioning from live to on-demand often exposes imperfections from the original event. Unlike live sessions, where imperfections are overlooked, the on-demand versions demand a higher level of professionalism.

We collaborated with xtendx, an enterprise video company, to create simplex Webinar, powered by Veeting Rooms technology, and integrated it into their on-demand product ecosystem. As a result, webinar recordings produced with simplex are markedly more professional and significantly enrich the on-demand webinar experience.

Enhancing Visual Appeal of Webinar Recordings

Our solution diverges from conventional screen recordings by capturing audio and video streams separately from the slide decks. Post-webinar, the video recording and the original slides are presented on a timeline within an intuitive video editor. Non-professionals can then refine the recording, address errors such as typos on slides, trim unwanted segments, and add supplementary information like chapters.

Once editing is complete and the content meets quality standards, the final version can be published and made accessible to viewers.

Viewers benefit from seamless navigation through the webinar, facilitated by slide thumbnails and chapters, enabling them to revisit specific segments of interest. Additionally, they have the freedom to tailor their viewing experience by toggling between video and slide deck focus as per their preferences.

Webinars published through the simplex solutions can be further configured with advertisements, protected using SAML or one-time access keys, registration forms, and a myriad of additional enterprise features.

"Webinar recordings made available on-demand through the simplex platform offer a uniquely professional, engaging, and enduring viewing experience", says Joël Jira, Managing Director at xtendx.

Widening Accessibility

This integration is available to all Veeting customers, partners, distributors, and resellers. Every whitelabel instance can be connected with the simplex product family to enhance the webinar and on-demand experiences. For more details on leveraging these enhancements, reach out to us, or directly to xtendx, the company behind the simplex product family.

Zurich, May 16th, 2023 - The Swiss video conferencing provider Veeting has integrated an AI-based meeting assistant as an additional collaboration tool in its web meeting platform. The assistant provides effective real-time support to meeting participants, enhancing the productivity and efficiency of online meetings. The meeting assistant is now available at no additional cost in all Veeting products, including Veeting Blocks, the recently announced low-code solution for developers.

By combining human intuition with extensive knowledge of AI, online meetings become even more results-oriented. Participants can access the AI-based assistant at any time to discuss questions or develop new ideas. Questions such as "What are the key differences between employment contracts in the US and Europe?" or "What are important things to remember when doing business across the globe?" don't need to be answered with search engines anymore, they can be answered directly within the meeting room itself.

The conversation with the AI is shown to all attendees at the same time, making the virtual assistant appear to be an additional person in the room. This results in a one-of-a-kind teamwork experience for the entire group in a positive environment.

"Our mission is to continuously improve the efficiency and productivity of meetings by developing innovative tools that simplify and enrich collaboration in online meetings," said Fabian Bernhard, CEO of Veeting. "The AI-based meeting assistant is the next milestone on this path."

The communication with the AI assistant is included in the automatically generated summary along with all other information produced during a meeting. This ensures that the results achieved with the help of AI are also documented and easily accessible to all participants after the meeting.

Veeting has placed user privacy and security at the forefront of all development steps for this feature. Meeting participants always have the choice of whether to use the AI assistant. Only questions explicitly asked by participants are forwarded to OpenAI, always via Veeting's servers, to protect the privacy of the meeting participants. In addition, account holders can deactivate this feature entirely.

"With the launch of the AI assistant, we are advancing innovation and standards for secure and productive web meetings," said Aymeric Moizard, CTO of Veeting. "With the solution we've presented today, meeting participants can easily and purposefully benefit from AI. At the same time, we are taking into account concerns about the use of AI in the workplace."

For more information go to www.veeting.com.

Zurich, March 28, 2023 – Veeting announces the launch of Veeting Blocks, a complete collection of collaboration and video conferencing web components for developers. Inspired by the idea of building blocks like Lego, Veeting Blocks gives developers pre-designed components to create their own unique solution. Veeting Blocks includes not only audio and video components but also web components for whiteboards, polls, meeting minutes and summaries, document sharing, screensharing, scheduling, and calendar invitations. Developers integrate these components into their applications without worrying about the underlying technology. Veeting Blocks is now available to all customers, partners, and resellers at no additional cost.

While existing CPaaS providers offer APIs for low-cost voice and video, they lack advanced collaboration features that businesses need. Veeting Blocks solves this problem by offering a one-stop solution for businesses. The comprehensive collection of collaboration and video conferencing web components includes whiteboards, meeting minutes and summaries, document sharing, polls, screensharing, scheduling and calendar invites, among others. With Veeting Blocks, developers can create tailored communication solutions and integrate conferencing into their existing application with ease.

"Our focus has always been on making communication and collaboration as easy and efficient as possible. We have filled a niche with our conferencing solution Veeting Rooms and its white-labelling companion Veeting Corporate. Veeting Blocks, the latest addition to our product portfolio, further underlines our commitment to bring effective communication everywhere," said Veeting CEO, Fabian Bernhard.

The Veeting Blocks components are based on the W3C standard "Web Components" and are supported by all browsers. Web components are a set of standardized browser APIs to build and package user interface elements and business logic. Web components can be shared and reused across different web pages or web applications. Developers leveraging web components focus on the high-level functionality of their application without the need to understand the logic built into the web components. This approach reduces development time and costs, as developers only need to write a few lines of code to connect to meetings and interact with the components, rather than building the entire solution from the ground up. Veeting Blocks enables companies to focus on delivering value to their customers, rather than spending time and resources on building complex infrastructure.

"Veeting Blocks and Veeting Rooms are built on the same technology, which ensures that all developments made on one product automatically become part of the other. This interconnectivity allows us to offer a seamless and consistent experience for our customers, no matter which solution they choose," said Aymeric Moizard, CTO at Veeting.

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss-based company founded in 2014. It provides encrypted video conferencing and web collaboration for businesses through its intuitive WebRTC platform. Veeting solutions are GDPR compliant, the company places a high priority on data privacy, never sharing any data. Its product portfolio includes Veeting Rooms, a web meeting solution for small businesses, Veeting Corporate for professional, fully branded video communication, and the low-code Veeting Blocks system for developers. Veeting solutions are accessible as a progressive web app on all desktop and mobile devices, with no additional software installation required. Companies looking to resell Veeting solutions can join the Veeting Partners program. With flexible options for booking individual Veetings, monthly subscriptions, or quickly setting up white label versions of the platform, Veeting Rooms makes virtual meetings as easy as a phone call.

For more information go to www.veeting.com

As any small business competing with the big players knows, standing out and going above and beyond gets clients. We frequently achieve success by developing niche functionality for unique use cases. We incorporate these features straight into our main product and enable or disable them per white label instance.

Blurred Faces

Virtual backgrounds have become a commodity in video conferencing solutions. Users want to conceal their busy office space, or the book shelfs in their home office. They sometimes also want to promote their brand by including the logo in the background. Some clients, however, have more precise requirements.

A university's medical department approached us a while ago. Interviews and case studies with patients are part of their curriculum. These patients relate their experiences, which can include medical issues and heartbreaking stories. Not everyone is willing to speak publicly about their own situation in front of a group of students. As a result, the notion of conducting video interviews instead of live lectures arose.

There are different strategies for concealing a person's identity, as we know from TV shows. You can film the person's back or use a powerful light in the background to show only the silhouette. These strategies, however, require a considerable setup with studio lights. In order to capture the whole story, the questions must also be properly prepared and thought through. The result is a pre-recorded video interview with no interaction between the students and the patient, making a Q&A session impossible.

With this experience, the medical department came up with the idea of video conferencing sessions as an alternative. However, because no solution on the market blurred the patients' faces, they needed to collaborate with a company that could implement such a solution. Additionally, since sharing patient information is highly sensitive, the solution needed to fulfill all data privacy requirements the state university is required to adhere to.

Being Anonymous and Human at The Same Time

Why not just use text chat or connect without a camera if someone wants to stay anonymous? These are obvious options. However, without video, all gestures are lost, making it more difficult to develop a relationship with that person. Video images enhance one's impressions of other people, creating compassion and understanding. That's one of the reasons video conferencing is so popular.

Even if the faces are blurred, students can still observe motions from the patient, allowing them to get a deeper knowledge of the person and react to the patients' feelings without being able to recognize the person on the street later.

Not Just for Lectures

While at first the requirement of the medical department felt extremely niche, we quickly found that this feature had a lot more applications. Just to name a few:

• In church, some believers confess their sins. The priest normally remains hidden or barely visible. The presence of the priest is felt, however, being not clearly visible, it makes it easier for confessors to speak freely and to confess.

• Many people who struggle with personal issues—such as addictions, debt, marital troubles, or other challenges—feel ashamed of themselves and are reluctant to talk about their problems in public.

Blurring its own face during a video consultation offers a way to speak more openly. This has been proven to be very effective, it breaks the ice.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

With the developments in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, implementing virtual backgrounds in video conferences is no longer rocket science. Various projects publish Open Source libraries to segment pictures and identify body parts and objects. As we see with the big waves ChatGPT is creating right now, Artificial Intelligence is already widely available.

Implementing blurred faces wasn't a difficult task thanks to our in-house knowhow and expertise. Our goal was to provide this specific feature for the medical department but not for the majority of our other customers, as it is most likely useless to them. Luckily, we have built our solution from ground up with such niche features in mind. Most of our modules are configurable, our White Label and Reseller Portal makes it easy to enable and disable features.

Do You Also Have Specific Needs? Speak to Us!

Do you have specific video conferencing requirements which cannot be covered by big-brand products? Speak to us, we have many years of experience implementing requirements which at first seem impossible to do.

White Label Instances

One of the great advantages of our hosted and on-premises solution Veeting Rooms is its white label capabilities. White label instances are configured with their own branding and domain name. Our brand Veeting is not visible at all. This option was specifically designed for partners and resellers that wish to include video conferencing in their line of products and market it under their own brand.

White label video conferencing, though, appeals to more than just resellers and partners. Many companies use Veeting Rooms to communicate with their customers, and they opt for branded versions too. Partners and resellers, in addition to their own branded service, can quickly create additional white label instances for their high value clients.

Imagine your customers providing consulting services to their own clients. A sales pitch or a product demonstration immediately becomes more authentic if they use their own, branded virtual meeting rooms rather than a third party product. Customers gain trust and feel more at ease as a result, as well as at home. Corporate communication is the foundation of every marketing strategy, and branded customer communication is essential.

This article walks you through the useful features of our partner portal and demonstrates the basic steps to quickly set up a new white label instance.

Multi-Tenant White Label Solution

The Veeting Rooms solution is a multi-tenant platform that supports thousands of independent video conferencing services. Each instance has a unique setup, domain name, and branding. These branded conferencing solutions are all managed through our Partner and Reseller web portal.

When you enroll with our partner and reseller program you receive access to that portal. It allows you to manage your own white label instance and to create sub white labels with just a few mouse clicks. Additionally, statistics and support tools help you to serve your customers better.

Easy Steps to Create a White Label Instance

Requirements

Despite the large number of configuration options available, setting up a white label conferencing solution requires only a few steps.

1. Product name: select a product name for the video conferencing solution, for example "Conference", "Consultation", etc.
2. Domain name: configure a domain name, ideally a sub-domain of the main website, which must point to our edge servers. This is done by creating a CNAME record in your name server configuration.
3. Branding materials: you need to have a copy of the logo (PNG with transparent background), an app icon (PNG, 1024x1024px), your brand colors and optionally a background image.
4. Email account: you should provide SMTP credentials to an email account that the system can use to send system emails in your name, for example meeting invitations. Of course, you could also opt to have the system send those emails with an @veeting.com email address instead.

Setup

Once all of the necessary information is available, it only takes a few steps to set up a basic white label conferencing platform:

1. Create the white label instance in the Partner and Reseller Portal
2. Upload the images and apply the branding colors
3. Set up the domain name and email account
4. Create the platform's first administrator.

The white label instance has now been created. The administrator set up in the previous step has now received the login credentials and can log in to create additional standard accounts for this video conferencing instance.

Branding

Colors

We use the concept of a primary and a secondary color to highlight buttons, active menus, etc. The main action buttons are colored with the primary color, whereas forms, navigation, etc. are use the secondary color. The same color can be chosen for both the primary and secondary colors.

Additionally, if your logo has a light tone, you can change the background color of the header and the logo. This also strengthens the appearance of the solution.

Images

Each white label instance has its own logo, app icon, and optional background image, as well as an alternative logo and app icon for the dark mode.

The app icon is a square icon with 1024x1024 pixels that is used as a browser tool bar icon as well as on the home screen if the app is installed on the user's device.

When users log in to schedule meetings or click on a meeting link to join a call, the background image is the first prominent branding item they see.

Custom CSS

We design our application with simple and clear elements and straight lines. However, companies may have specific requirements for rounded buttons, darker shadows or corporate fonts. The Custom CSS advanced feature allows web designers to overwrite nearly all design decisions we made in order to apply their own style.

System Configuration Options

All technical settings are stored in the system configuration. It is divided into several sections. You do not need to configure everything; we use smart default settings whenever possible. However, some settings, such as the white label instance's domain name, must be configured.

A brief overview of some of the configuration options is provided below. Many more are available, and they cover a wide range of niche needs that you or your customers may have.

System

This is where you set the domain name of the conferencing solution. Make a DNS record with a CNAME that points to our server. It can be any domain name, however, we recommend it to be a sub-domain of your or your customers company, for example "meeting.example.com". You can also configure the product name, a "Marketing URL" that is displayed in emails, and a "Leave URL" that meeting participants are directed to after their meeting.

Email

The system sends a number of emails to users, for instance an email with the initial password, meeting invitations and meeting summaries. These emails originate from the email account you configure in this section. Note that this email address does not need to receive emails, it is best set up to ignore all incoming emails.

Region

Veeting Rooms is currently available in ten different languages. You may not want to provide all of these translations to your customers and therefore only select those that are important to you. Another critical setting is your base timezone. Dates and times in the email text are displayed in that timezone. Calendar invites and the browser, on the other hand, always display the date and time in the user's own timezone.

Legal & Compliance

Depending on your jurisdiction, disclaimers, imprints, or a link to your privacy policy may be required. All of these policies can be configured in this section. Data retention can be required or prohibited; you decide how long data is stored in our system.

Features

The largest configuration section covers meeting room features such as

• the default meeting types
• requirements for participants to join meetings
• language channels for interpreters
• sounds played upon entering and leaving meetings
• dial-in numbers and PSTN connectivity
• etc.

Additionally, exotic features such as the option to blur its own face are available too.

Addons

Veeting Rooms integrates with a number of third party services such as Microsoft Office 365, Zapier and Slack. Each of these integrations are branded with the white label brand and can optionally be enabled.

Statistics

In particular for resellers and partners it is important to have access to usage and account statistics. These statistics help you to monitor the system and invoice your customers.

Support Tools

One way to beat out large competitors is to provide excellent customer service. The portal gives you access to detailed technical statistics as well as information about your customers' meetings. You can easily identify weak internet connections and poor call quality, allowing you to advise your customers on how to have better meeting experiences in the future.

Note that while support staff has access to meeting statistics, no actual meeting content is available. Meeting content is only accessible to meeting organizers and account members in accordance with data privacy policies. After 14 days, the system also deletes all connection statistics data.

It Started With A Newsletter

A few weeks ago, we received a newsletter from a competitor concerning video conferencing safety and security. The newsletter discussed the importance of security and how customers should carefully select their video conferencing provider. One of the topics was the External Security Posture. This competitor proclaimed in their newsletter that they are leading the embedded video space with a score of 94 points (out of 100). The score was issued by a company called SecurityScorecard.

Because we at Veeting value data privacy and security, we were intrigued by our competitor’s claim and investigated how we scored with SecurityScorecard. We signed up to them and were shocked to see that we scored only 64 points.

SecurityScorecard

SecurityScorecard is a US company aiming to become a global security rating agency, similar to credit rating agencies such as Moody's, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch. Rather than examining the financial health of companies, SecurityScorecard rates the external security posture of companies by scanning servers and IP addresses associated with that company.

Each server associated with a company is then screened against a variety of security criteria they have defined. Finally, a score between 0 and 100 is assigned, similar to financial ratings ranging from D to AAA. SecurityScorecard claims that, on average, the higher the rating the less likely companies are to be impacted by security breaches.

Their primary customer base appears to be enterprises that use a vendor portfolio to monitor their suppliers. These portfolios display overall security scores and identify riskier and less risky suppliers, ultimately assisting them in mitigating their own software security risks.

First Impression

While we have no doubt that security scorecards and assessments are crucial for every company, at first we felt as though we had been shaken down by mobsters. This is not a service from which software vendors can opt in or out. Achieving and maintaining a high score in accordance with that particular company’s assessment criteria adds to our cost of doing business. We were never asked if we wanted to take part in it nor were we able to evaluate and assess their criteria for functionality. Customers could have added us to their supplier’s scorecard and decided not to do business with us, simply because we were not following what this seemingly arbitrary company thought best.

Fortunately, the free-tier option provided us with sufficient information about the reasons for our initial low score. Furthermore, the extremely helpful representative of SecurityScorecard assisted us in removing servers that were not under our control.

As we dug deeper into the remaining concerns, we gained a better understanding of potentially valid problems we had never considered previously.

The Good News

The good news first: even though our initial score was low, SecurityScorecard did not find critically rated issues on any of our production servers. These servers, which contain user data and facilitate video conferences, are used by our clients. This gave us confidence that our established procedures live up to our standards.

Good Catches

Long Forgotten Servers

SecurityScorecard found a server we had long forgotten about. It was once used for testing purposes and should have been shut down. The scans also found an incorrectly configured firewall associated with an internal project management tool. We were glad to have been informed of these.

Parked Domain Names

To safeguard its trademark, Veeting registers a number of domain names. The majority of these continue to be parked with the registrar. They neither relate to any of our servers nor are they used in any way. Nevertheless, we are in charge of them because they are our domain names.

At this specific registrar, certain DNS entries, such as MX records but not SPF records, are defined by default for parked domain names. In theory, a malicious party may have deceived a recipient into thinking that emails they received were from us because one of these domain names was used as the “from” address. These problems were simple to resolve and helped raise our score.

Weak Ciphers in Connection Offers

SSL and SSH services on all our servers are configured to support strong cryptographic ciphers. However, the servers also supported some weaker ciphers. While we explicitely configure SSL ciphers, the available SSH ciphers were part of the default configuration of the well known and well established Linux operating system that we use. SecurityScorecard reduced our score simply because our operating system offered some weak ciphers among the strong ones.

Developers of web browsers - with security in mind - make sure that browsers always use the best ciphers available to connect securely to a website, even if weaker ciphers are offered. Since we had already received an A+ rating from the well known experts at Qualys SSL Labs, we were surprised that SecurityScorecard expects even stricter configurations. Nevertheless, since we do not support old browsers it was easy to reconfigure our web servers.

Likewise, SSH connections for server maintenance could have used weaker ciphers since they existed alongside the strong ciphers. Mitigating this risk involved changing the default settings of our OpenSSH configuration.

Dethroning the King

Competitions are fantastic because they bring out the best in everyone. Taking up the challenge, we worked diligently on improving our score. Within six weeks we achieved a score of 96 points (as of December 20th, 2022), thereby dethroning the current self-proclaimed leader in the embedded video space.

While we have no relationship with that particular competitor we are glad that they brought up the topic of security and data privacy. Too often, cost is the driving factor for companies choosing a software service as crucial as video conferencing, without much thought being given to hard-to-assess criteria such as security and data privacy. We are glad that European providers are leading this field and remain strong compared to competitors elsewhere. Last but not least, as cyber security is an on-going concern for everyone in the field, the more eyes on the topic and the more tools and insights available, the better we become.

Further Reading

This article discusses external security assessments. Similarly important are legal topics such as data privacy and GDPR-compliance. Check out our Privacy Policy and GDPR-compliant Data Processing Agreement.

Zurich, March 7, 2021 - Veeting, the Swiss provider of privacy-compliant web conferencing services, has reported encouraging growth for the past year: the number of customers with a white label instance grew from 30 to more than 250. Through the resale channel, the number of companies holding their business meetings with the Veeting Rooms online conferencing service also rose to more than 2,800 worldwide. In total, more than 120,000 business meetings ("Veetings") were held in Veeting Rooms worldwide in 2020. This is many times more than in previous years. Veeting CEO Fabian Bernhard does not attribute this very encouraging growth solely to the increased use of web conferencing in the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic. Concentrating on the white labeling niche was a strategically important decision. That's because more and more companies no longer view web conferencing as a necessary evil, but as an integral part of their long-term work culture within the company and across corporate boundaries. "Online consulting has definitely established itself as an established communication channel to the outside world," says Bernhard. Veeting also allows resellers, such as IT companies, to offer a solution under their brand or allow their customers to brand the web conferences with their own brand. In addition, the trend toward more online events has boosted business. Here, Veeting works primarily with xtendx, the Swiss provider of an enterprise video platform where Veeting is part of the overall offering.

"Lockdown and Homeoffice certainly played their part in our success last year. But a weighty influence on our business performance in 2020 was also the market-driven mapping of the sales channel with our own distributor and reseller portals for opening whitelabel instances." Making the whitelabel business Veeting's most important mainstay has proven to be the right move: "Our technology investment in these sales channel portals has clearly paid off," Bernhard is certain. After all, many companies today were looking for a Swiss solution that complied with data protection regulations and also allowed their data to be processed in a Swiss data center. "Companies brand our white-label products and hold business meetings and consultations on their own website - virtually in their own online meeting rooms. That creates trust."

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility - enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

From virtual conventions to remote meetings, video represents the new definition of “face-to-face” interaction for many organizations. Technology providers have been working hard to keep up with the demand for reliable platforms to host this explosion of activity. For two Swiss companies, years of preparation are putting them ahead of the curve in serving up secure, reliable, feature-rich solutions.

xtendx: Professional Webcasting and Video Content Management

xtendx specializes in high-end webcasting and digital asset management with its portfolio of Simplex products. The company has spent more than 15 years building a reputation for helping organizations put their best foot forward with video communication. According to CEO and Founder Charles Fraefel, “There is a shift toward wanting more professional and highly polished content. A CEO doesn’t necessarily want to deliver corporate communications via a webcam. That executive would rather have a classic studio webcast with professional cameras set up.”

With the xtendx solutions, companies can live stream these video shoots with Simplex Webcasting, capture and store content on Simplex Collector, and publish it for on demand viewing with Simplex Channels. For interview style content, a host can even have questions coming from viewers delivered to an iPad or other device to incorporate into the conversation. The same technology can be used to conduct polls/surveys during a live video broadcast. This blend of interactivity and highly polished delivery helps organizations increase audience engagement while reinforcing a positive brand image.

Veeting: Virtual Meeting and Collaboration Tools for Business

xtendx is focused on the professionally produced content that may stream to an audience of thousands. In contrast, Veeting’s virtual meeting technology is more about personal connection for smaller groups from two to two hundred. The company’s WebRTC platform pairs HD videoconferencing with a variety of sharing and chat features that can be used for presentation and collaboration.

Veeting CEO, Fabian Bernhard, mentioned a top benefit for users. “Our technology runs without any software to install or plugins to run. Anywhere people have an internet connection, they can use Veeting on their own device.” As part of Veeting’s white label program, xtendx added this virtual meeting solution to their portfolio under the name Simplex Meeting. Both companies have always prioritized security and data privacy (including GDPR compliance), making the alliance a natural choice.

Sample Use Cases for Simplex Solutions

Government

Swiss Parliament uses Simplex Webcasting to livestream their sessions. But this content also needs to be made available for later as well. The system is set up to produce these videos and publish them automatically. Each session is distributed to the government’s web portal along with important notes such as the start and stop times for each speaker, and how each representative voted on each issue. This streamlined distribution and annotation makes it easy for the press and interested members of the public to easily find relevant information.

Financial

As a highly regulated industry with strict security and privacy laws, banking is often behind the curve in terms of adopting new technology. But a shift to virtual interactions is forcing more rapid change. xtendx recently integrated Simplex Meeting into an onboarding solution for a large bank to address this challenge. Relationship managers can use their financial institution’s own white labelled version of the software to have secure, private conversations with customers. In-person transactions such as opening a new account can now be performed virtually, including visually verifying personal ID and sharing other highly confidential information.

Live Events

Perhaps the most exciting use of combined webcasting and videoconferencing is for conferences and other live events where attendees will engage remotely. As many organizations are now trying their first virtual events to replace or augment on-site attendance, they face a serious risk of damage to brand reputation and future attendance if things go wrong. Fraefel pointed out the necessity of getting the technology right the first time. “Video streaming represents a single point of failure that can make or break a live event. There are no do-overs.”

Simplex Webcasting is a popular choice for keynote addresses and interviews with subject matter experts for broadcasting to all attendees. For the breakout sessions with individual presenters, Simplex Meeting offers an experience tailored to smaller groups. At many events, some of the most popular sessions involve hands on and interactive workshops. The Veeting WebRTC platform offers the ability to collaborate directly with participants and gives presenters options far beyond simply showing a slide deck. All notes and files shared during the presentation can also be automatically distributed to participants after the session closes. Webcasts and breakout sessions can also be recorded for on-demand viewing and gated to allow paid access.

Simplex Is Working to Make Video Simpler Everywhere

In the era of remote engagement, new integrations and features are being developed continuously. xtendx and Veeting are committed to meeting the challenges of new use cases while maintaining high performance and giving organizations more control over their video communication.

Zurich, October 8, 2020 - Veeting, the Swiss provider of web conferencing services, is responding to the sharp rise in demand from various industries for secure, privacy-compliant solutions for hosting virtual meetings by presenting a new release with many additional features. The new features focus in particular on the needs of enterprise customers and resellers who brand or market the white-label versions of Veeting Rooms. The main enhancements are in the areas of legal and compliance, security and privacy, and branding and convenience. For example, the latest version allows settings that are even more compliant with local regulatory requirements, and additional authentication methods have been introduced to restrict access to sessions. In addition, Veeting has increased the possible number of video participants in boardroom meetings to 30, and there are new options in defining custom labeling, as well as various other features such as a YouTube player, a survey and a quality feedback tool, a meeting calendar, a time zone picker or for blurring backgrounds or faces. "The Covid 19 pandemic has brought us increased demand from companies in all industries, both domestic and international. We now want to meet the changing customer needs with new functionalities," says Veeting CEO Fabian Bernhard. "This is because many companies and public sector organizations want to brand a web conferencing solution without having to compromise on data protection, information security and convenience."

For example, organizations not only have to meet legal requirements such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) or the Swiss Data Protection Act, but also increasingly have to comply with internal guidelines and security regulations, says Bernhard. With the new version 6.4 of Veeting Rooms, it is now also possible to define your own imprint URLs or to automatically delete data from accounts after a certain time. Furthermore, blurred images allow to meet the needs for more privacy in the home office and the protection of sensitive information. The ML (machine learning) technology used in this process is also used to blur faces - a function that allows the anonymity of patients to be protected during clinical lectures, for example. Bernhard emphasizes: "The machine learning technology that we use to blur faces and image backgrounds does not run in our data centers, unlike the solutions of most of our market competitors, but exclusively on the end devices. In this way, we also meet the high requirements of data protection authorities with regard to the protection of sensitive personal data." Furthermore, white label customers can configure in the settings whether participants must or may provide their e-mail address, require an active account or an access code, or whether authorization for a session can be delegated to an external service. Furthermore, it is now possible, for example, to use user-defined CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to override style preferences defined by the system. "Such innovations as custom CSS allow our customers more branding options and thus an improvement when appearing at web conferences with their own brand."

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility - enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

Zurich, 15 April 2020. The current crisis has led to an unprecedented surge in demand for video and audio conferencing. While online collaboration eases the burden of home office work it also comes with some serious data protection risks. This is particularly true for companies that handle sensitive data. An alternative, based on high security standards, is the web conferencing solution Veeting Rooms, which has been operated by the Swiss company Veeting AG since 2014. In the past month the company has tripled the capacity for its service at short notice, but continues to guarantee the usual high level of data privacy: all audio and video conversations at Veeting Rooms are conducted via encrypted connections, and all data is stored exclusively in Switzerland in ISO 27001-certified data centers or in the company's own network of distribution partners and customers.

Fabian Bernhard, founder and CEO of Veeting AG, calls for a cautious approach when choosing a web conferencing solution. While data security has always been critical issue, it has become quickly relevant to a broader user base with the COVID 19 pandemic: "Many companies are suddenly under great pressure to find quick solutions for the forced home office of employees. With regard to data protection, this can lead to reckless decisions that are difficult to reverse later on". Bernhard therefore advises companies to check carefully, even under time pressure, whether the selected web conferencing solution complies with Swiss and European data protection guidelines and their own compliance requirements.

For years, Veeting Rooms has been used by financial and consulting companies, in human resources or by organisations in the health care industry. Veeting works worldwide with renowned sales partners who are familiar with the specific market requirements - in Switzerland these are, among others, xtendx AG as a strategic partner in the enterprise video sector or peoplefone AG, in Germany autphone Gmb, peoplefone GmbH and TeamFON GmbH. In addition to various standard Veetings, Veeting Rooms also offers end-to-end encrypted Off-the-Record Veetings or Webinar rooms. 30-minute Veetings with up to five participants are available free of charge during the Corona crisis. Veeting AG currently also donates 20% of its direct turnover to local social organizations: "The help should reach those who are actually in an existential emergency situation due to the current situation", Bernhard explains this decision.

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility - enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

For more information go to www.veeting.com

Zurich, September 20, 2019. Growing climate awareness, rising travel costs and the desire for efficient staff deployment: ever more business trips and customer visits are already being replaced by video and audio conferences. For the past five years, the Swiss company Veeting AG has offered Veeting Rooms, a service characterized by exceptionally high data security and outstanding user-friendliness. For the first time in Veeting’s history, the company now relaunches its web-based solution. The new Veeting Rooms makes it straightforward to create white label versions of the platform while offering new and attractive functions for virtual meeting rooms. This enables resellers to integrate an established web conferencing solution directly into their service portfolio. Even small and medium-sized companies can now invite their customers to web meetings directly from their own websites without asking the participants to register or install any software. Using Veeting Rooms is as easy as making a phone call.

Veeting Rooms is based on WebRTC and enables high-quality audio and video conversation directly in a web browser. Veeting was one of the first providers to adopt the new communication standard as early as 2014 and today has extensive know-how in this technology. By using WebRTC, Veeting Rooms only works over encrypted direct connections - this approach along with the exclusive data storage in Switzerland ensure a particularly high level of data security.

Easy and fast - Infinite White-Label version of Veeting Rooms

An established, European web conferencing solution with a wide range of functions that can be turned into a white label solution with just a few clicks: With fully branded web conferences, Veeting enables a new form of customized communication for companies. Veeting creates virtual meeting rooms for resellers, large companies and SMBs that make their businesses even more successful. Veeting Rooms is also suitable for industries handling sensitive data, as it is possible to operate the service within the company's own network.

Fabian Bernhard, founder and CEO of Veeting AG, is convinced: „Just as every company has an office with a customer area, so too will every company soon have virtual meeting rooms featuring its own brand identity. In order to work efficiently and save costs, it will become increasingly important for companies to use audio and video conferencing for their business“

Hassle-free, Progressive Web App

One of the success factors of Veeting Rooms is easy access: invited meeting participants enter a virtual meeting room simply by clicking on a link, without registering or installing any software. With this new version, Veeting also breaks down possible barriers in mobile communication. Instead of opting for a mobile app, the company offers a Progressive Web App that can be opened directly from a web browser. As a result, all features are always available on all platforms.

Even greater convenience in planning web meetings

Veeting Rooms has always offered more than just a communication channel for audio or video conferencing, namely a complete service ranging from a meeting planner to follow-up and virtual meeting rooms with intuitive tools. The new version offers the possibility to plan recurring meetings and to configure different meeting types.

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility - enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

For more information go to www.veeting.com

According to a 2013 survey from McAfee, the average technology user has about $35,000 worth of assets stored on digital devices. That’s not counting the value of all the assets dispersed across the cloud or the value of funds in financial accounts that are vulnerable to loss if a consumer’s login credentials are compromised. Add in the loss of social standing and sense of violation when private information becomes public knowledge, and it’s no wonder that issues like privacy and security keep some people up at night.

“No Cost” Storage Options Come at a Price

Free online storage platforms are fine for sharing and managing documents that contain no private information. But free services may come with strings attached. For example, data may be mined for the benefit of advertisers and other interested parties. In the words of Tobias Christen, CEO of digital security provider DSwiss, consumers are catching on to this fact.

“In Europe, at least, people are realizing that If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product. Your data is analyzed and sold.”

If that data has to do with a person’s preference in shoe styles, this is of little concern. When it comes to financial information, the stakes are higher.

Some data is simply too personal and important to risk in a non-secured environment. “That’s why we at DSwiss have built a digital vault. This is online storage for documents and passwords that’s so secure that only you can access it. It’s personalized encrypted. It has convenient features such as syncing files, mobile scanning, file sharing, data inheritance, and more.”

This company designed their SecureSafe solution as a virtual lockbox that can only be opened by the authorized user (with two-factor authentication) so that even employees and programmers at DSwiss can’t see what’s inside. Shielding privacy is a value that the Swiss have long been known for in the world economy. Now, this protection is being offered to every technology user who wants to stay in control of their digital assets. The typical SecureSafe user may use their vault to store everything from housing contracts and insurance policies to wedding pictures and other digital heirlooms that will be passed down to future generations.

How Financial Institutions Leverage This Virtual Lockbox

While this type of security is important for the average consumer, it’s even more critical for banks and other financial institutions that want to serve their customers with the highest level of privacy. In fact, this is what made SecureSafe such an attractive solution for institutions like Deutsche Bank that have integrated the vault concept into their customer service process. Tobias demoed the solution at a recent Finovate conference, showing how banks use a white labeled version of the DSwiss product to provide customers with a private platform to store their financial documents.

But can the bank see what customers have in their vaults? Not without specific permission. The customer can select if and when to share specific documents with their banker or financial advisor. Everything else is strictly off limits. *“Even the bank can’t look into it unless the customer approves that specific document.” *

The vault is integrated with a communication system that allows the bank to send documents to customers for review and signatures. Christen pointed out that this helps banks communicate more efficiently and reduces paper, which helps support their environmental stewardship objectives. Compliance is another tangible benefit for banks as regulations become more complex.

“The beauty of integrating customer-centric communication with the digital safe is that you fulfill GDPR principles like control of the customer and privacy by design.”

Housing communication within the secure environment of the digital vault is a big step up in security compared to transferring information via paper, flash drive, or email. For banks that know their reputation is at stake in the event of a data breach, DSwiss helps these institutions maintain a secure environment that makes them worthy of the faith customer place in them. “Things change, but one thing stays the same. You trust your bank to manage your digital assets.”

DSwiss Anticipating Rapid Growth with Help from Tech Partners

The benefits for banking institutions are obvious, and that’s one reason DSwiss is looking at aggressive growth in the coming years. Founded in 2008, the organization has earned its reputation for understanding and meeting the needs of financial sector clients. But the process of client acquisition can be fairly involved. The presale, sale, and implementation phases all require substantial, detailed communication to precisely meet the needs of each institution.

In keeping with its commitment to private and secure technology, DSwiss found a capable partner in Veeting, a WebRTC provider also located in Switzerland. With this fast, secure platform, the DSwiss sales team can serve clients more efficiently while maintaining the high touch and personalized service that the world’s most prestigious financial institutions expect.

And although the web meeting solution is feature-rich, the intuitive interface eliminates any confusion for new users. For a sales team focused on working effectively and getting things done on time, this was critical. According to Tobias,

“Simplicity was the most important. It had to be fast. You need to be able to get to screen sharing with one click.”

With architecture designed for ease of integration, Veeting was readily incorporated into the SecureSafe application itself. For example, attendees at a virtual meeting can receive the Veeting summary directly in their vault, keeping the topics under discussion private.

As the FinTech industry continues to gain steam, there will be many more opportunities for this type of strategic partnership. Those companies that remain open to integration without compromising their high standards for security and privacy will no doubt continue to rise to the top as preferred vendors for financial institutions.

Financial institutions around the world have been providing online banking options to customers for many years. But the more nuanced areas of consultation and wealth planning have traditionally taken place only in-person at local branches. Today, this is beginning to change. One Swiss wealth planning firm, VermögensZentrum (VZ), recently made the decision to make the entire client service experience available over the internet.

A Quarter Century of Expertise Goes Online

The firm provides an extensive array of services to its clientele, including heritage and real estate planning along with management of all areas of finance. With 25 years in operation, VZ is a well-known and trusted organization within its current service areas. However, this is just the beginning of the story. This financial institution has exciting goals to grow its Swiss presence and expand beyond the nation’s borders.

According to Project Manager Shun Chao Guo, VZ’s team wants to do more than focus on customers located in major metropolitan areas. They want the ability to serve all of Switzerland. However, the topography of the nation poses a challenge. “We are in a geographic area with many mountains. There are hidden villages in remote regions that make it difficult to connect with clients.”
Building branches in every location the institution seeks to serve would be a cost-intensive and lengthy process. Modern technology in the form of Veeting’s Web Realtime Communication (WebRTC) solution can help them bridge the gap and achieve their mission to deliver wealth management expertise throughout the country and beyond.

“Our goal is to go online over all our offices. Our consultants and clients will have access to more options. They can choose how to connect.”

While reaching new customers is a key part of VZ’s plan, existing customers also benefit from the implementation of virtual meeting rooms. Surprisingly, the early adopters of this solution aren’t necessarily the younger, more tech-savvy customers. According to Shun Chao, “We have many older clients who find it a hardship to travel to come to our office. At the same time, they are not comfortable with having an advisor visit them in their home for a consultation.” Veeting provides a solution that satisfies the need for face-to-face interaction while maintaining professional boundaries. Consultants at VZ can communicate directly from the convenience of the central office or any branch while the customer remains comfortably at home.

Rolling Out Virtual Wealth Management

VermögensZentrum uses Veeting to provide the same services online as it has traditionally done offline, from setting appointments to gathering information, finding solutions, offering advice, and creating agreements. The virtual meeting software provides the opportunity for one-to-one consultations—an essential element in engagements that delve into highly private financial information.

As with any change, there was initial hesitation about replacing in-person meetings with virtual interaction. However, once consultants experienced the convenience of the solution, they were quick to change their minds. Shun Chao revealed, “Now, they are asking if they can use it.”

The response from clients was positive as well. For those who hesitated to travel or who simply couldn’t access VZ’s expertise otherwise, web conferencing proved to be a significant benefit. In fact, online meetings had distinct advantages in delivering even higher-quality service to clients. The organization found they could loop in experts on specific topics more easily.

“We might have one person from Zurich and one in Bern. They can come together to advise clients without the delays caused by coordinating schedules to travel and arrange meetings in person.”

Naturally, there are still many clients who prefer traditional, in-person contact. They can still visit local branches and speak in-person with VZ advisors. Having more options simply helps the institution satisfy the needs and preferences of their entire customer base.

What’s Next for VermögensZentrum?

While only a handful of consultants within the organization use Veeting currently, plans for widescale adoption are in the works. According to Shun Chao, “Our goal is to go online over all our offices. Our consultants and clients will have access to more options. They can choose how to connect.”

While one-to-one consultations are the core of daily client service, the additional features available in Veeting will support VZ in new client acquisition as well. In particular, VZ uses the software’s one-to-many functionality for educational webinars to inform and engage potential customers. With the ability to reach its target audience in Switzerland and surrounding countries without the burden of building infrastructure for facilities on the ground, the company is well prepared to meet its business growth goals over the coming months and years.

How CPaaS and the API Ecosystem Help Telecom Deliver Value for the Enterprise

In the world of telecommunications, profit margins are getting tighter and technology is changing faster than most providers can keep pace. Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) competitors are coming in over-the-top to deliver value and reap massive profits in the enterprise space. But it may be the middleware layer in the telco industry that puts traditional networks back in the running as providers of the highest margin services. Kevin Nethercott, VP of Business Development at Telestax, offered a glimpse into this new reality at the 2017 Telecom Application Development Summit (TADSummit) and a recent follow up interview. With Telestax and Restcomm already serving over 80% of carriers, this organization is uniquely positioned to share insight regarding the key challenges facing the telecom industry—and the exciting opportunities that lie ahead in the era of “API or Die”. Here are a few of the top takeaways for all the players involved in Telestax’s RestcommONE Marketplace new ecosystem.

Multiple Threats Face Telecom Providers

According to Nethercott, several simultaneous trends are working together to threaten the profitability of traditional networks. First, free over-the-top apps and services like Skype triggered a shift in consumer expectations for what modern communication should include. On the network side, not all providers can currently offer voice and omnichannel on the same number. The profit margin on voice is dropping at the same time, even for providers that have maintained a steady revenue.

Naturally, technology vendors have realized that there’s plenty of money to be made serving businesses with omnichannel solutions,

“With the advent of the retail CPaaS, we have companies that are now coming in and stealing the enterprise customer, taking what we think is the highest margin business.”

“These CPaaS or ‘programmable telecom’ providers are merging everything from voice to SMS, video and location/mobile through APIs and solving customer problems faster.” It’s no surprise that telecom service providers are seeking urgently for a way to change their approach to providing services so that they can capture some of this opportunity rather than just selling minutes to higher margin product providers. The problem is that telecom tends to move at a glacial pace. Yet history has shown that change must, and will, occur.

From Landlines to APIs: User Experience Is Paramount

Kevin pointed to the recent evolution of telephony to show how, “If you go back fifteen years, all we had were hardwire networks. Then VOIP came along in the nineties and was eventually standardized as SIP. Everyone supports SIP these days, or they would not be in business.” But there’s another sea change occurring at this moment that will sweep away any organization that refuses to adapt. “Very soon, enterprises will only be willing to connect via API rather than telco protocols. We’re starting to see numbers from the enterprise that they would prefer to purchase services through APIs.” Already, about 67% of enterprises report that they prefer to use CPaaS rather than a telecom connection. With a rollout time of a few minutes vs. days or weeks, it’s no surprise. Today, businesses are just as impatient as consumers to get technology in hand that will enable them to get things done.

It isn’t just speed of implementation that comes into play. A seamless UX is the holy grail of today’s enterprises. It’s not about having a PBX or a specific device anymore. Omnichannel communication is at the top of the priority list for businesses that want to engage customers more effectively.

**“That’s where we see enterprises making significant investments. In the end user experience.” **

In real life, this means meeting people where they are to deliver an immediate, in-app experience with a rich feature set enabling the business processes that make the enterprise tick. According to Kevin, it’s about accomplishing tasks with minimal friction—not about being married to a particular tool. “We don’t need a PBX anymore, but we need PBX features. The user experience isn’t the phone, it’s the app I live in at my desk at work or home. Whether that’s SAP, CRM, or HR software, these are the new user interfaces for communications. That’s why the APIs are so critical. You can’t plug a PBX phone into the back of your SAP system. You need a RESTful API so you can talk to each other, set up a click-to-call button, record the call, maybe transfer it—all these PBX things, but in a different format or user experience.”

For telco to compete, they must use APIs and CPaaS to meet the expectations of enterprise customers and ultimately the end users that businesses seek to serve. Nethercott made no bones about how seriously the industry must take this shift.

**“All of us have to figure out how we can implement and provide APIs to our customers, or our business will die.” **

And with a worldwide CPaaS market expected to exceed $8 billion by 2021, there’s a very good reason to do whatever it takes to survive.

How Telecom Providers Can Compete in the CPaaS Space

Fortunately, the situation is far from dire—and adaptation may turn out to be much easier than it seems. There is good news for network providers who want to increase margins and drive incremental revenue:
First, they have a massive customer base already established. Connecting with a cloud-based platform and working to implement APIs allows existing providers to play defense against over-the-top competitors and retain market share. “Service providers have been asking us to enable them to become a CPaaS. We’re recognizing that these features just allow them to play defense, which is critical. If they can overlay some services, that’s their defense to keep these over the top services out.” With providers like Telestax in the transport layer, networks can go to market immediately with voice/SMS/video capabilities to satisfy their enterprise customers.

Second, telco organizations don’t have to dive into developing applications to be competitive. Networks can continue focusing on being scalable, reliable, and horizontal—their core strengths. That’s a relief for Nethercott and his peers in the telecom industry. “As telco people, we can’t develop a killer app. There is nothing vertical in our personalities at all. You have to have someone who lives and dies inside a business process to create a killer app.” Telestax comes into play by opening up the APIs so that vertical oriented application players can become part of the ecosystem. Bringing the network and the applications together is, in Kevin’s opinion, the secret weapon to breathe new life into telecom.

Everyone Gets a Slice of the Profits with Revenue Sharing

Ironically, although APIs will serve as the foundation of modern telecom, they aren’t going to be worth much in their own right. In Nethercott’s view, just selling APIs will turn into another race to the bottom with price compression happening in the next few years. But selling application solutions with great business value can be a high margin game for everyone involved. That’s where the revenue share model comes in.

It’s an innovative approach—and potentially a revolutionary one—for a middle layer technology player to be instrumental in driving both innovation and profitability for the entire market. But this is the role that Telestax seeks to fill, becoming the broker that marries application developers and SaaS providers with telecom in a relationship for mutual benefit. Through the RestcommONE Marketplace,

“We are able to bring these killer apps into a marketplace where these providers can take the apps to market in a revenue sharing model.”

The global reach of a company like Telestax, with a presence in dozens of countries, means having access to unlimited innovation.

Kevin’s team has found novel use cases as well as robust applications from low cost regions as varied as Eastern Europe and Latin America that are ripe for introduction in the U.S. market at a competitive price. “One of the most exciting things about being in our position is being able to take a young company and go global with it. They just needed that one integration point—and they never had that opportunity before.” Both new and established SaaS vendors benefit by becoming a channel partner with Telestax, gaining unprecedented access to introduce their technology to the world’s largest telecom providers. These providers, in turn, get a piece of the revenue for helping bring those apps to their own enterprise customer base.

What about the middle man? Telestax also benefits from orchestrating these partnerships from their position in the transport layer. With a typical revenue share giving 50% to the application vendor and 30% to the telecom network, that still means 20% for Telestax as the CPaaS enabler. It makes an enormous difference to finally participate in the value prop by providing a well-run marketplace. For example, rather than earning fractions of a penny for a traditional transaction, they may earn two cents per transaction for a high value application that can charge ten cents per SMS. Even with a lower priced service, the numbers add up quickly.

WebRTC Stands Out as a Value Add for Telecom

In the API and CPaaS based ecosystem, the focus in the telecom space remains on augmenting and enabling communication. Kevin gave Web Real-Time Communication as an example of a value-added service that is making waves right now. “WebRTC is being called CPaaS 2.0 because it brings all of this together in a very lightweight fashion that’s even easier to integrate and use in these types of experiences. It’s absolutely critical as you look to pull these components together.”
On that note, Telestax spoke about Veeting Rooms as an example of how simple it can be to bring a new channel partner into the marketplace. “The integration process was straightforward because our solutions are both standards based. That’s the beauty of APIs. You don’t have to be in the same data center on the same machine. You can connect to the platform using SIP connections. It only took a few days to establish the proof of concept with Veeting.”

The new solution is already being used in Telestax’s sales pitches to educate telecom customers about what’s available in the marketplace to add value for the enterprise.

Veeting Rooms gives traditional network providers a white label option to compete with outside vendors like WebEx and GoToMeeting.

In Kevin’s opinion, “Pure WebRTC is exactly where the tech is going, with rich features in a browser.”

Telecoms can now offer their enterprise customers a way to consolidate their communications technology under an existing, strong SLA while enjoying the user experience that fully meets their expectations.

What’s Next for Telecom, the Enterprise, and CPaaS?

As Telestax continues to reach out and integrate more vendors into the RestcommONE Marketplace, telecoms will be able to mix and match a wider variety of services to meet the needs of each enterprise client. With a ready-made platform to market new Best of Breed solutions, the groundwork is laid for even more innovation to create transformative business solutions delivered through traditional telecom relationships. It might just be the over-the-top competitors who end up struggling to maintain their position as high-value providers in the communications space. If that happens, it’s likely that Telestax will be waiting with open arms to invite them into the new CPaaS ecosystem where everyone wins.

DLS and Veeting Bringing WebRTC to Unified Communications

Sam Rozenfeld, CEO of Chicago-based DLS Internet Services, is well aware of how fast customer expectations can change. Video conferencing software is a case in point. Fifteen years ago, a video conferencing system was considered a luxury. Companies spent enormous amounts of money to have custom systems installed and configured—and only participants on-site in the main conference room could expect to have full access to this specialized technology. Today, consumers use free platforms like Facetime or Skype to connect ‘face-to-face’ on the web in their everyday lives using handheld devices. In the same way, business users expect to be able to connect with each other via a live video feed from any device and any location.

For Unified Communications providers, it’s essential to have a feature-rich video-conferencing option that can scale to meet the needs of thousands of business users simultaneously. According to Sam, “It’s becoming a must have for UC applications. We can’t offer competitive service without it.” As a smaller company accustomed to competing against much larger organizations, DLS had an in-house development team that was well-versed in many aspects of the communications field. However, it was evident that licensing an existing web-conferencing application would make more sense than trying to build one.

The chosen solution needed to meet several requirements:

1. Meeting or exceeding the expectations of business users for features and functionality
2. Integrating seamlessly with PBX systems
3. Providing an affordable licensing structure to add value without a high cost
4. Scaling easily to grow with the business

Sam found particular value in the holistic nature of the Veeting Rooms solution that enabled user participation by phone or on the go. The application even allowed participants to dial into the system by traditional phone over the PBX bridge, providing access to the web meeting even without an internet connection. Communication was also an important part of the process of bringing the two solutions together. In fact, it was the support provided during integration that sealed the deal. Sam expressed appreciation for the Veeting team.

“The way Veeting operates is just as important as the solution itself. They work as true partners, listening, understanding, and meeting our needs.”

Additional factors also made Veeting the top contender for integration with the DLS Unified Communications platform.

Support for the Multi-Tier, Multi-Tenant Model

For any Unified Communications provider, achieving economies of scale is a concern. Rozenfeld’s customers already had access to a solution that felt like their own private cloud PBX. This multi-tenant architecture needed to be mirrored in the web conferencing solution both for end user satisfaction and for cost-effective scalability. Using the API integration, DLS found they could configure and provision a huge number of virtual meeting rooms to meet the needs of different customers without deploying a separate instance of Veeting for each one.

Paying for only a single instance of the Veeting server to accommodate multiple customers made sense not only for DLS, but for their resellers down the line. These resellers could also white label their own web-conferencing solutions with ease, just as DLS did. And it wasn’t just the favorable licensing model that Sam and his team found attractive. It was how the entire application supported the DLS business model. “I don’t know of any solution that provides this kind of flexibility.” The company already has Veeting integrated into the UC solution and will also offer web meeting rooms as a standalone feature. This approach should add another revenue stream by attracting businesses looking for a viable alternative to more costly web conferencing software.

A Platform Prepared for the Future

Outdated video conferencing systems are on their way out as consumer-driven development pushes applications to meet higher standards. Unified Communications providers are paying attention to which platforms are keeping up with recent changes. Sam pointed out a key difference during his search for a web conference integration partner.

“Veeting has the advantage of using modern WebRTC technology. When we were researching vendors, we found many that were still using older technology such as Adobe Flash or other proprietary software that end users have to run.”

It made sense for DLS to choose a solution that they could deliver to customers over the web without plugins, special hardware, or other error-prone components.

Of course, being state-of-the-art in the communications industry isn’t something that can be achieved once and then left on autopilot. Rozenfeld acknowledged that his interest in Veeting is as much about where the technology will go in the future as where it is today. “It’s an evolving product. Something that will continue to get even better over time.” That commitment to remaining at the forefront of the communications field is one thing that won’t change about Veeting.

Veeting Rooms Improves the Business of Distance Learning for OEP

In an increasingly global economy, tomorrow’s well-educated and highly skilled professionals need an early start at mastering international interactions. Online Education Partnership (OEP) provides a vital service for families that want to ensure their children are prepared to attend the best schools at home or abroad. The company delivers virtual tutoring for students along with advisory services to help families reach their educational goals.

Founded in 2015, the organization is managed by Director Rebecca Merrett. She shared a brief history of OEP. “We started in 2015 by bringing together high-quality tutors in the U.K. with Hong Kong based students. Delivering tutorials online allowed us to offer a broader range of subjects and greater expertise. It was also very convenient for parents and students to learn from home on their own schedule. We quickly realized that we wanted the freedom to innovate and develop our own software based on the feedback from tutors and students over hundreds of hours of online lessons.”

Slow Software Held OEP Back from Progress

One of the key frustrations Merrett’s team faced in delivering the best quality tutoring experience was their selected video-conferencing partner. They found that the software simply didn’t have the capacity to provide seamless real-time communication. High latency wasn’t just making lessons difficult to provide, it was preventing OEP from making inroads in its chosen market.

“We were using another solution, but it wasn’t working. It was too bandwidth heavy and too slow. We couldn’t get traction in the market due to laggy connections.”

To fulfill the organization’s vision of a Best of Breed distance learning platform, they needed a WebRTC solution to provide a highspeed video link, an interactive whiteboard, screen sharing, document sharing, and more. Merrett began exploring options. Veeting Rooms was recommended to OEP’s Chairman, Richard Howorth, and the company decided to take advantage of a free trial. Rebecca soon found that the software and the culture of service at Veeting were both a good fit for OEP.

“The Veeting Rooms team was very responsive and hands on. We felt strongly that it was important to work with a vendor who has the same level of quality in their work that we have in ours. When we came back with suggestions, they came up with solutions and implemented changes. But they gave us straight talk and didn’t promise anything they couldn’t deliver.”

A Laser Focus on Enabling Users and the Business

For this online tutoring service, the implementation of a new video-conferencing and whiteboard solution needed to accomplish several objectives:

1. It had to have low-latency to ensure that video streamed smoothly
2. It needed to integrate with the company’s automated booking system to eliminate manual scheduling tasks
3. It needed to accommodate how tutors wanted to use the software to improve educational interactions
4. It had to be affordable to serve as a core part of OEP’s software infrastructure and operations

Reliable, highspeed and high-quality video was already part of Veeting Room’s solution at a low cost, which made it immediately stand out from competitors that Rebecca researched. Integration with the scheduling system was accomplished easily as well. One area for customization was the addition of a laser pointer—a useful tool for tutors to communicate visually with students. To streamline the user experience, OEP also requested that the rest of the rich feature set be pared down to the essentials. “During the trial period, we looked at what features the tutors actually used, and those were the ones we selected for the final version.”

Which Features Were Favorites for OEP and End Users?

According to Merrett, the whiteboard with its options for both freehand drawing and text entry was at the top of the list. Screen sharing which allowed tutors to pull up and share online videos with ease was another top contender. But enabling business operations and promoting growth remained the most important benefits. “We can’t run the business without it, since we make our revenue from connecting students and tutors. And it’s important that it integrates with our booking system, since we are handling several hundred sessions a month. Trying to use a platform like Skype would mean having to manually connect tutors and students. It just wouldn’t be realistic.”

Overall, quality, reliability, functionality, and affordability proved to be deciding factors for OEP in choosing Veeting Rooms. As the organization grows to serve the needs of their target market, Online Education Partnership can rest assured that their WebRTC partner is ready and able to support their growth initiatives.

Ximena Fajardo, marketing manager of Meet With Me Now, has recently sent us
one of her most important tips and tricks for professional video conferencing. We are glad to share these valuable tips with you too:

Lighting for video conferencing

The way you set up your lights will make a big difference in the way people on the other end of your call perceive you. Remember face and body language are essential or else you might as well be making a phone call. Look at your image critically. Analyze what is the image you wish to project. Best that the camera be at the same level as your eyes so your face won´t look distorted.

Basic rules

1. Make sure the people on your end fill up a good portion of the frame. If it’s just you, that means your face. If it’s your classroom, it means the students. You can either bring the camera closer to your subject or zoom in the lens.

2. Make sure there is light in front of you or the people participating. Any light is better than no light yet light from the top or back can be detrimental to clarity. A good rule of thumb is to make sure there is a light no more than 45 degrees off to the side and no more than 45 degrees above eye level.

3. A neutral background is best. Try not to have a window in back of the people in the video. A dark background makes faces appear washed out and a bright background usually makes faces appear dark. If you can´t do anything about the background then fill light in the foreground.

For the more adventerous readers we would also like to link to the faboulous article Proper lighting for WebRTC Video by Chris Koehncke. It walks you through the steps of building your own budget lights for professional video conferencing.

Contact us with your tip and tricks for professional WebRTC meetings.

At Veeting, we are glad to have the opportunity to work in an industry that is constantly evolving. The WebRTC standard itself is still in development, and the potential for innovation in the use of this technology is high. This year alone, we have added several options to our portfolio of offerings. These new choices supplement our popular “Standard Veeting” that hosts five audiovisual participants for team collaboration and typical business meetings. Here’s a quick overview:

Classroom: One to Many

This scaled out version of the Veeting room can host up to 50 visitors simultaneously. One or more presenters can share education and information with this large audience in webinars. Interactivity via video and chat can be facilitated by the meeting administrator to add more value to these online events.

Boardroom: Ten at a Time

This upgrade from the traditional Veeting Room is ideal for formal meetings where up to ten participants need to engage at the same time. Calling in from a landline is also an option, and the meetings can be recorded for future review.

Off-the-Record: Peer to Peer

Today’s smart devices have enough computing power to run WebRTC without the need for a server to carry the majority of the workload. In fact, the underlying server simply facilitates the handshake between devices in this new, private, fully encrypted P2P version of Veeting. End user devices carry on an isolated meeting leaving no trace of content on the server.

We are excited to see what the coming year brings for Veeting. Contact us with your ideas for new features and functionality.

Zurich, September 27th, 2016. Launched two years ago, Veeting Room successfully offers easy to use virtual meeting rooms to business users. This browser based WebRTC solution runs directly in the web browser without the need for 3rd party software installations. Today, the Swiss company announces two additions to its product portfolio: the new virtual Classroom with up to 50 participants and the Boardroom for formal meetings are available immediately. These two additions underscore Veeting Rooms ambition to establish itself as an innovative all-in-one solution for virtual business meetings. All Veeting solutions are available as a SaaS subscription and as white label products for integrators and re-sellers. Veeting already partners with 16 re-sellers and fulfillment partners globally. The solution provider now extends its product portfolio in-line with its overall product strategy: with Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

What makes Veeting Rooms different from most of the audio and video conferencing solutions is its simplicity. All communication channels are based on the WebRTC technology which runs directly in the web browser. This makes it easy for meeting participants to join a virtual meeting without installing additional software or registering an account. All virtual meeting rooms come with a range of collaboration features such as simple scheduling, an interactive whiteboard, online presentations and automated meeting summaries to make virtual meetings effective.

Ideal tool for most communication needs

Veeting Rooms is a future-proof collaboration platform that gives business users an opportunity to boost their efficiency and productivity with enriched communications. We believe that the product enhances Iskratel Unified Communications (UC) solution by providing new value-added services for which end users are willing to pay. Iskratel UC can be either hosted or offered as a SaaS from the Iskratel cloud. This ensures fast time to market and almost instant deployment", says Bojan Kriz, Head of Multimedia Solutions at Iskratel.

Standard Veetings allow for up to five video participants or ten audio participants. This is an ideal solution for day-to-day business meetings and team collaboration. On top of this offering, Veeting launched the
Off-the-Record Veetings at no additional cost. These highly secure meeting rooms allow for fully end-to-end encrypted business meetings that leave no traces of the meeting content on the server.

Schools and companies can use the new virtual Classroom to coach and teach virtually to up to 50 participants. Meeting hosts can configure the Classroom according to their needs. They can allow participants to interact on the white board or give them access to the video stream to ask a question online at any time. Further more, white label customers can configure their system to record the audio and video streams for future use or to allow participants to call into a Classroom by land line.

The new Boardrooms allow for up to 10 meeting participants to join with video. This is the ideal solution for formal business meetings. White label partners can record audio and video for future audits and allow users to call in by land line.

All meeting rooms can automatically create meeting summaries and send them to all meeting participants after the meeting.

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility - enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

For more information go to www.veeting.com

WebRTC Faces the Future with Janus Server from Meetecho

Janus, the two faced Roman god of gates and transitions, is a fitting icon for Meetecho’s WebRTC server. In fact, this open source technology does more than bridge the gap between one person and another, making real time communication over the web more secure and reliable. The Janus gateway implementation is also designed to provide WebRTC access to a greater array of technologies. It can integrate traditional telecommunications with the browser, enable web developers to create better multimedia experiences, and even connect users with IoT for real world impact.

The State of WebRTC

There is no question that Web Real Time Communication has come a long way in a short time. Simply the fact that real-time multimedia can be accomplished without plugins is a significant accomplishment. Lorenzo Miniero, cofounder of Meetecho and main author of Janus, offered his perspective on the current state and potential future of the technology. “WebRTC is important because it allows you to do everything you want with real-time media in a browser or mobile app. There’s nothing you can’t do with it, which is exciting. It’s a huge milestone in communications in general and everybody has to adapt not to be cut out.”

With benefits like greater ease of implementation and a higher level of security, there are many reasons that keeping up with this technology is a wise choice. But there are difficulties that come along with working on a standard that has not been set in stone.

“The main challenge is that if you don’t keep updated you can wake up one morning and find out that whatever you had doesn’t work anymore.”

Having a distributed developer community that helps with feedback and bug fixes is certainly an advantage in staying ahead of the curve. That’s one reason Janus is open source.

Legacy Still Faces Integration Challenges

Although the Janus gateway is modular, well supported, and freely available, there’s still no shortage of situations where implementation can be tricky. Organizations tend to have developers who are savvy in terms of web and mobile but not with backend development. Or, they may have a solid background in Telco but little familiarity with browser-based communication. Full integration requires a knowledge base that encompasses both fields. Lorenzo’s team is often called upon to design the architecture and backend interfaces that allow Janus to be deployed in an IT environment that features a mix of technologies.

Practical and Whimsical Use Cases Abound

The Janus Gateway is being pressed into service in both the academic and business worlds. For example, the technology is being used for e-learning and co-working in addition to traditional videoconferencing. For commercial WebRTC solution providers like Veeting, Janus has been instrumental in adding additional scalability, connectivity, and privacy features. From one-to-many presentations to call center solutions and peer-to-peer communication, virtual meetings are now available in more configurations to serve a broader market.

Some of the most interesting work being done around WebRTC is with embedded technology. For example, two IoT developers crafted an application to control a Parrot Jumping Sumo drone over the web. “They adapted the Janus backend by adding calls to the ARDrone SDK. It can capture video and send it back to the user via WebRTC.” The user can control the drone with simple keyboard commands based on this real time visual feedback.

What Does the Future Hold?

As WebRTC continues the journey to maturity, questions remain about the standards involved. With both VP8 and H.264 being accepted as mandatory codecs by IETF, there is no single path forward. However, most of the technical challenges are well in hand. Lorenzo pointed out that Telcos favoring older unified communications platforms are in for a rude awakening.

“Some are still resisting and betting against WebRTC succeeding. But it will succeed. There is no getting around it.”

In fact, WebRTC has already revolutionized the telecommunications industry. And television could be next. Meetecho is currently working on stress testing the technology’s ability to provide simulcasting over the web to hundreds or thousands of viewers at once. Tomorrows users could enjoy interactive TV from their mobile devices—complete with the ability to call in to their favorite talk show and participate in a live discussion.

On the cutting edge of WebRTC, multimedia delivery is being taken to new heights. The Janus server is even being leveraged to support real time streaming of virtual reality, providing a 3D experience for users. The options for entertainment, gaming, and training are just starting to be explored. Where will WebRTC be in two years? According to Miniero, the answer is simple. “Everywhere.”

Balmy Latin America is feeling a cool breeze from the Swiss Alps this season with the introduction of Veeting Rooms into the regional telecommunications marketplace. XmarteK, a value added distributor of enterprise communication solutions, has deployed our technology for its own helpdesk centers with great success. In response to popular demand, the organization is rapidly rolling out the platform to clients and resellers throughout Latin America as well. We spoke with Juan Pablo Pazos, CEO of XmarteK, about his experience with Veeting Rooms. Our team was pleased to hear a positive report.

How Veeting Supports XmarteK’s Business

The primary use for Veeting at XmarteK at this time is for customer support. The video conferencing capabilities of the platform have helped take the organization’s service to the next level. Looking a customer in the eye seems to make a big difference in motivating staff to get the job done. Results include:

• A deeper connection with customers who feel seen and heard
• Conversations that go straight to the point and result in actionable decisions
• Faster, more effective follow through after the call is over
• The ability to easily keep account managers in the loop by distributing meeting minutes

In all, the company has seen a 20% increase in the volume of tech support requests that can be handled without increasing staff headcount. Pazos plans to use the full range of Veeting Rooms’ collaborative features for ongoing internal training initiatives in the future to improve the organization even more.

XmarteK’s Customers Want Veeting Rooms Too

From call centers and universities to individual business owners, the telecom consulting firm is seeing requests for access to Veeting technology from clients of all sizes. Resellers are already asking to white label and offer the solution to their own customers. That should be no problem, based on our commitment to making the implementation process as simple as possible. Pazos had these kind words to share about his experience, “The solution has been very easy to deploy, and we are receiving the right amount of support.” We are excited to partner with XmarteK to provide WebRTC across Latin America!

Kranj and Zurich, January 18th, 2016. Iskratel, a successful and innovative European telecommunications solutions provider, integrates a white-label version of Veeting Rooms into Iskratel Unified Communications solution. The new product empowers Iskratel customers with professional WebRTC communications and advanced business collaboration features. This new partnership provides Veeting with access to Eastern European and Central Asian markets.

Veeting Rooms is a WebRTC communications and collaboration platform that facilitates real-time video conferencing in web browsers. This web-based solution provides professional business users with user-friendly team-collaboration features. Veeting licenses the Swiss-made product as a white-label solution to service providers and global resellers.

Filling the Gap

Veeting Rooms is a future-proof collaboration platform that gives business users an opportunity to boost their efficiency and productivity with enriched communications. We believe that the product enhances Iskratel Unified Communications (UC) solution by providing new value-added services for which end users are willing to pay. Iskratel UC can be either hosted or offered as a SaaS from the Iskratel cloud. This ensures fast time to market and almost instant deployment", says Bojan Kriz, Head of Multimedia Solutions at Iskratel.

New Markets

"Partnering with Slovenian Iskratel is a huge opportunity for Veeting. It gives us access to new, fast growing markets across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Our team is proud of this success and looks forward to working with Iskratel toward delivering high-value solutions to customers", says Fabian Bernhard, CEO of Veeting. “Iskratel is the first European partner that brings our solutions to these markets. We are honoured to have received this opportunity”.

About Iskratel

Iskratel is a competent and credible global integrator of infocommunications solutions with 70 years of experience, EU-based R&D and own manufacturing, 900 employees and local presence in over 30 countries. We leverage our ICT expertise in delivering integrated solutions across telco, transport, public safety and energy industries. Our customers from 50 countries describe us as innovative and customer centric. Our flexibility allows us to blend into your environment.

For more information go to www.iskratel.com

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility - enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

For more information go to www.veeting.com

Regardless of the many advantages that they offer, face-to-face interviews are becoming more and more outdated, as video conferencing seems to be the new norm in human resources. Each of these types of interviews (in-person and video) comes with advantages and disadvantages, and it would be unfair to think that one is better than the other. Still, there are differences worthy of being mentioned and taken into account when designing a successful interview process.

Why do recruiters still choose in-person interviews?

A study performed by the Degroote School of Business at McMaster University in Ontario suggests that applicants who were interviewed using video conferencing were less likely to get the job compared to the ones who underwent in-person interviews.

On the other hand, the same research points out that interviewers who use video conferencing may be regarded as less trustworthy and personable by the candidates, which means that the latter might feel tempted to refuse a job offer. Apparently, meeting a candidate face to face is beneficial both on the part of the recruiter and on the part of the job applicant. As organizations compete for talent, personal evaluations may convince a candidate to accept an offer.

The analysis was performed in 2013, when just 50% to 65% of employers had reported having used video interviews in their recruiting process. PGI assessed that in 2014, over 65% of candidates preferred using video during the interview process.

Nevertheless, personal interviews are still a good way of gathering information, as the interviewer has the chance to watch the nonverbal behavior of the interviewee. Questions can be repeated, and recruiters have more flexibility when it comes to connecting the dots. Spontaneous answers sometimes fail to show up from a candidate when they know they might be recorded.

Although the advantages of this method, including direct eye-to-eye contact, cannot be denied, meeting a candidate in person comes at several costs.

Image Source: Pixabay

The disadvantages of in-person interviews

One of the core downfalls of an in-person interview is that it is both time and cost-consuming. Meeting an applicant is a process that can occur after many appointments have been made and canceled. Therefore, it’s less advantageous for the recruiter.

Furthermore, it might prove to be a too expensive method for the applicant, particularly if they’re applying for a job in a different state or a different country. Traveling from one location to the other depends on availability and personal finances.

Why video interviews are on the rise

Video conferencing can speed up the entire interview process. This approach is considerably less expensive compared to in-person interviews, and it allows better and easier scheduling on both parts.

Additionally, the arrangement can occur in the form of a pre-recorded interview, which can help the individual relax as they are not answering someone’s questions on the spot. During large recruiting campaigns, this technique eliminates interview scheduling on the part of the recruiter, as they can assess the candidate’s abilities in their own good time.

According to an article published by HR Magazine, video conferencing can make the difference when it comes to selecting from thousands of applicants. The HR Magazine feature mentions the success story of Post Office UK, which organized a staff recruitment drive on Christmas 2014.

Brett Davies, the resourcing manager at the Post Office, claims that there were approximately 20,000 applications received throughout the campaign. In the course of two weeks, 1,400 applicants were invited for a video interview, and 550 of them were both interviewed and reviewed. The approach proved the clear value of video conferencing for high-volume recruiting campaigns. According to Davies, video interviewing led to lowering up to 80% of travel and venue costs, which would otherwise had been allocated to assessing the candidates in person.

Image Source: Pixabay

Are there any drawbacks to video interviews?

Some candidates and recruiters might still prefer in-person interviews over video conferencing. Job applicants might be unable to acquit themselves well on video, even though they were brought up on technology. This method may place a technological barrier between the interviewer and the candidate, as a possible lack of eye contact may occur.

Also, a technological disadvantage could arise as not all applicants are technology-savvy or own modern laptops featuring reliable webcams. Nonetheless, the average consumer nowadays is proficient in terms of using new software.

Adjusting to the requirements of video software is a concern for the candidate, as they may think of the experience as being an uncomfortable and unnecessary effort. By the same token, the conversation can suffer from poor audio or video quality and thus become time-consuming for the recruiter and for the interviewee. Web conferencing can eliminate this inconvenience altogether. It does not require the applicant to install new software on their personal computer, and the connection is performed both safely and efficiently.

Hiring a candidate takes time and effort and is quite a challenging experience. On average, it takes approximately 45 days to hire a new employee, which is why video collaboration tools can lend a helping hand to an HR manager in need.

According to the Harvard Business Review, customers don’t need salespersons the way they used to. Is that good or bad for sales managers? Let’s look at how sales have changed over the last 15 years and let’s try to estimate just how much more things will change in the near future.

In the beginning of the 21st century, sales were still being done on the field. Speaking directly to a customer was common, and so was traveling from one country to another just to meet with a potential client. On the one hand, this was advantageous for the buyer, as business came to them. On the other hand, although the sale per say was the main goal, this proved to be counterproductive and very time-consuming for the sales manager.

At the exact moment when the contract would have been signed, the sales manager would have spent countless hours in a car, in a plane or in some other means of transportation, in the hopes that the meeting would have been successful.

Granted, nothing beats meeting a client in person. That’s why people are still doing it. Communication skills can often times play their part when shaking a man or a woman’s hand. However, meeting prospective buyers who live overseas is very hard to manage, particularly when the salesperson is not sure of the outcome of the negotiation. Also, sometimes you want to sell something big or expensive to people overseas. In this case, video conferencing is a great tool because it increases the reach of the sales person and helps build trust via visual communication.

Even now, there sometimes is little to no work-life balance in the busy schedule of a sales manager.

Customers don’t want to meet sales reps anymore

In 2011, Gartner predicted that by 2020, approximately 85% of customer relationships will be managed without a direct human interaction. Buyers can now make decisions without the help of a representative, and the countless purchases that are being performed online on a daily basis are proof. More surprisingly, a Corporate Executive Board study shows that 60% of a buying decision occurs before talking to a sales rep.

In 2013, Gerhard Gschwandtner, Selling Power CEO, estimated that by 2020 80% of B2B transactions will be automated. According to Gschwandtner, video conferencing technology will be the main method used by both teams and sales reps. Eventually, web conferencing will become so important that telesales will be anachronistic.

Of course, it very much depends on what you are selling. The likelihood is that if, for example, you’re selling software development at a very high price, the client will want to meet you in person and maybe even visit your company office to also meet the team. Especially since these kinds of collaborations are oftentimes long lasting and trust is built over time.

Unlike past times, the salesperson nowadays does not have the task of informing the customer. In fact, the customer can oftentimes complete the job of getting informed on their own. Nevertheless, adding value to a purchase can be done by a salesperson, particularly if they are capable of understanding and resonating with the needs of the client. For example, our customers inform themselves about Veeting online but often they still call and want a live presentation.

In 2020, sales will happen even at a quicker pace

Image Source: Pixabay

Sales and marketing have greatly evolved in the last decades, and that’s all thanks to technology. Cold calling has not been entirely replaced by email marketing and newsletters but they all go hand-in-hand while the Yellow Pages have been replaced by websites. Sales reps now have to embrace technology and start abiding by its rules. Furthermore, they should feel compelled to utilize online tools which can simplify and quicken the sales process.

What does this mean for the sales manager?

While adapting to the requirements of new and improved tools might seem daunting, they undoubtedly offer net advantages when it comes to time management. Therefore, representatives will see themselves compelled to keep up with the new technologies and have a more efficient and analytical thinking, which can be integrated into various marketing automation techniques.

By 2020, sales and marketing are likely to converge, according to Kyle Porter, CEO of Salesloft. Porter claims that salespersons are likely to shift from an individualistic way of thinking to an organization-oriented one and gradually start working towards the same goals that they share with marketing managers.

Sales in 2020 are likely to be completed with a baffling speed. Therefore, sales managers have to improve their skill sets towards integrating both operational and social mentalities.

Impact on the sales manager’s life

All these efforts will greatly impact the sales manager’s life. For one, they might need to travel less often, which will allow them to spend more time with their family.

Secondly, video and web conferencing will give them the opportunity to grow and nurture the relationships they’ve built with their existing clients, without them leaving the premises of the office building.

Acquiring new clients may prove to be easier and more effective by using the formerly mentioned methods, as reps will have the freedom to explain the features of the service or the product even by using body language.

• Since inside sales don’t translate into travelling costs, they can reduce cost-of-sales by 40-90% relative to field sales. Other important benefits include:
• Reduced sales costs per contact
• An increase in the number of contacts per day
• Greater availability and reduced response times for customers
• Inside sales teams can be specialized in various fields (industry, product, activity) at the same time, whereas field sales teams are confronted with a territory size penalty created by specialization.
• The possibility to increase the size of inside sales teams without the need for relocation of salespeople. Communication and collaboration can be done via video conferencing technologies.

### 2020 will see more sales representatives using branded video conferencing rooms for inside sales

Visual aspects are never to be overlooked or underestimated. More often than not, using visual elements during a sales presentation or pitch can actually boost customers’ trust and make your brand stick. There are video conferencing technologies that allow you to achieve that level of personalisation. Salespeople can actually personalise the meeting room so that it looks more professional by uploading their company logo and making use of different colours that represent the brand.

By using branded video conferencing rooms, you create a personalised environment that will make you and your customers feel more at ease and further eliminate the barriers associated with physical distance. Of course, ease of use remains a top priority. Your customers should be able to access the meeting with a single click, without installing any extra software and with the minimum amount of hassle involved.

More and more companies are using video conferencing tools to conduct business communications in an effective manner. Video conferencing can be used as a tool for internal communication between geographically dispersed teams of sales representatives, marketing personnel, product owners, managers, and other employees in order for them to be able to work more closely, despite the physical distance. Furthermore, businesses are also starting to use video conferencing as a way to enable face-to-face communications with partners, suppliers, investors, and clients that are located abroad. This process in known as inside sales.

What is video conferencing generally used for within organizations?

According to a survey conducted by Polycom and Redshift Research, as video conferencing becomes available to virtually all employees who own a mobile device or a laptop, users in different business departments within organizations use video in various ways, depending on their needs:
CEOs and founders use or would use video conferencing to enable a flexible working schedule and inter- office/local meetings (50% each). These are followed by other reasons such as: international meetings (46%), new business/sales and company/department meetings (39% each).

• Marketing departments are the most frequent users of video collaboration with 64% using video at least weekly. They are followed by IT/engineering and facilities with 62% using video at least weekly.
• When it comes to daily usage of video at work, HR departments are the top users (32% indicate they use video conferencing daily), followed by sales executives (28% indicate they use video conferencing daily).
• 61% of respondents in IT/engineering departments and 58% of respondents in manufacturing/supply chain departments are most likely to use video to collaborate face to face with colleagues internationally. These two departments are more likely to use collaboration for international meetings than local, in-country video meetings.

76% of decision makers are now using video conferencing at work with 56% of video users taking part in video calls at least once a week. The survey has revealed that in Brazil and Singapore that number increases significantly, with more than two-thirds of respondents in these countries using video conferencing at least once a week.

In what concerns using video conferencing for new business, 44% of Brazilian respondents stated that they use or would use video conferencing for new business. At a global level, 38% of respondents use video, or would use video, for new business.

According to another report issued by Ovum, companies are using video conferencing for a wide range of scenarios. These include:

• Salespeople are likely to use video conferencing to keep in touch with clients during the whole sales process and even after closing the deal.
• Customer service representatives use video conferencing to provide customers with best-in-class support by leveraging the advantages of face-to-face communication.
• Banks use video to connect their customers to tellers and financial advisors while insurance companies use it to connect claims adjusters with both customers and agents in the field.

#### The rise of inside sales

Many B2B companies are making inside sales a priority. In that sense, they started investing into creating new inside sales teams, while using advanced analytics to measure and improve their productivity levels, combining inside and field sales to increase market coverage, and using selling tools appropriate to inside sales, as well as upgrading their inside sales customer engagement processes and techniques.

The inside sales wave is triggered by three main factors. The first one has to deal with B2B sellers who feel competitive pressure to cut costs, while seeking more efficient ways to sell to a larger market. The second factor has to deal with B2B buyers becoming more comfortable with purchasing and collaborating remotely via email, social media, conference calls, etc. The third factor refers to the possibility of salespeople to create a customer experience very similar to that of in-person meetings via video conferencing technologies. Some tools even allow sales representatives to create branded meeting rooms by uploading their company logo and personalising the look and feel of the virtual room with their brand colours.

Interestingly enough, since inside sales don’t translate into travelling costs, they can reduce cost-of-sales by 40-90% relative to field sales. Other important benefits include:

• Reduced sales costs per contact
• An increase in the number of contacts per day
• Greater availability and reduced response times for customers
• Inside sales teams can be specialized in various fields (industry, product, activity) at the same time, whereas field sales teams are confronted with a territory size penalty created by specialization.
• The possibility to increase the size of inside sales teams without the need for relocation of salespeople. Communication and collaboration can be done via video conferencing technologies.

Did you know that you can use branded video conferencing rooms for inside sales?

Visual aspects are never to be overlooked or underestimated. More often than not, using visual elements during a sales presentation or pitch can actually boost customers’ trust and make your brand stick. Nowadays, there are video conferencing solutions that allow you to achieve that level of personalisation. Salespeople can actually personalise the meeting room so that it looks more professional by uploading their company logo and making use of different colours that represent the brand.

By using branded video conferencing rooms, you create a personalised environment that will make you and your customers feel more at ease and further eliminate the barriers associated with physical distance. Of course, ease of use remains a top priority. Your customers should be able to access the meeting with a single click, without installing any extra software and with the minimum amount of hassle involved.

Zurich, November 6, 2015. The Swiss web conferencing solution Veeting Rooms and SecureSafe - the ultra-secure on-line file safe - have decided to join forces. Participants of virtual meetings can now easily and securely receive meeting summaries, including all shared documents, into a fully secure numbered safe.

After each meeting Veeting Rooms automatically generates a meeting summary with the minutes, all relevant documents and the chat history. These meeting summaries can now immediately be saved and shared without any security risks and with just a mouse click. Veeting AG, which was founded in 2014, has found an excellent partner in Swiss-based DSwiss AG, whose ultra-secure on-line safe SecureSafe ensures that all confidential data remain protected from any external intrusion during transmission and on-line storing.

Veeting Rooms is a web conferencing solution for business customers. It offers a virtual meeting environment with audio and video conferencing and collaboration tools for live slideshow presentations, document sharing, text chat and whiteboard drawings. Until recently meeting summaries were distributed by e-mail to the meeting participants. Fabian Bernhard, CEO of Veeting, is proud to now also offer his customers a secure Swiss data transmission and storage solution, which is both effective and user-friendly. "A number of our customers insist on the fact that their data must be protected against external intrusion and must remain on Swiss territory. Our partnership with the leading Swiss provider of secure and simple data saving solutions is now a major selling point for us."

Bespoke solutions for businesses

Meanwhile, the SecureSafe solution - which is developed entirely in Switzerland - is used across the world by over 700,000 people and companies. "The need for an application that guarantees the secure saving of video conference summaries was important. Thanks to the partnership with Veeting Rooms, we now have a simple solution that we can recommend to our customers without any reservations", states Tobias Christen, CEO of the Zurich-based company DSwiss.

As underlined by Tobias Christen, SecureSafe continuously strives to devise bespoke solutions for companies, who insist on the security of their data. In Switzerland, SecureSafe has already created solutions for several cantonal banks, for AXA Winterthur as well as for many small and medium-sized enterprises. International businesses, such as the Spanish security service provider Prosegur, or the German insurance company Allianz, also rely on solutions created by SecureSafe.

About DSwiss SA and SecureSafe

Specialising in highly secure Internet services and in the long-term storage of important data, DSwiss AG was founded in 2008 and its headquarters are situated in Zurich. It offers the highly secure online storage SecureSafe, which more than 700,000 people across the world already use to save their data and passwords. Several banks, insurance companies and security providers such as Allianz, UniCredit, Prosegur and the cantonal bank of Zurich, deliver and store sensitive documents such as account statements in their customers' SecureSafes.

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility - enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

For more information go to www.veeting.com

WebRTC technology for audio and video conferencing enables encrypted peer-to-peer conversation directly in the web browser without the need for any third party software installations such as Flash or Java.

WebRTC has experienced a high number of use cases ranging from conferencing and collaboration for contact centers to HR and recruitment, training, education, distance learning, tele-health, market research, transactional data exchange, remote consulting services, surveillance, financial services and other.

As everyone knows, an HR manager’s job revolves around people. She/He is the person taking care of existing employees, talent promotion and other people related core functions of a business. Also, an important part of an HR manager’s job has to deal with recruiting new candidates for different positions. Therefore, they should be able to communicate with candidates for an opening position as well as for all interviewing and recruiting aspects.

How do candidates feel about interviews via video?

Software Advice has conducted a survey to find out how candidates feel about interviewing for a job via video.

The key findings are as follows:

1. 47% of respondents with prior video interview experience prefer this format, while 67% of those who haven’t prefer phone interviews.

2. Most of the recent job applicants surveyed (57%) prefer a live video interview to a pre-recorded video interview (28%).

Mehrabian’s “7%-38%-55% Rule”

Furthermore, studies conducted by Albert Mehrabian, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UCLA, were combined to produce the “7%-38%-55% Rule” where 7% represents words, 38% represents voice and 55% represents facial expression. Basically, the idea is that, in finding meaning and liking in a piece of communication, a receiver relies 7% on the actual words said, 38% on vocal elements and intonation, and 55% on facial elements cues. Therefore, it is very important for HR managers to actually have visual contact with their candidates during an interview.

The top benefits of video conferencing via WebRTC technology for HR managers

HR managers have finally begun to grasp the time - and money-saving potential of conducting interviews via video. With video conferencing via webRTC technology, recruiters and hiring managers can easily conduct live and pre-recorded interviews with candidates regardless of their location. This significantly reduces travel costs and eliminates daunting scheduling hassles.

As a matter of fact, new analysis of a global survey conducted by Redshift Research has revealed that HR executives who use video at work today say they will prefer video collaboration over email as their top method of business communication within three years. The majority of those respondents (56%) indicated video would be their most preferred method of business communication, surpassing email (49%) and voice conference calls (32%).

Furthermore, Aberdeen Group’s 2013 report on video talent acquisition found that 32% of organizations were investing in video interviewing in 2013, compared to 21% of organizations in 2012. The top three reasons identified by Aberdeen for this growth in adoption were:

• To reduce travel costs
• To shorten the time to hire
• To reach geographically dispersed candidates

One other important benefit of video interviews over phone interviews is that they allow HR managers to see interviewees’ appearance and body language, making it easier for them to create a psychological profile of the candidate.

Furthermore, HR managers who use video conferencing via WebRTC technology only have to share a meeting link to candidates they are about to interview. At the opposite pole, if you interview on Skype or over the phone you have to pass your phone number/Skype ID to the candidates. This means that they can contact you later on again, without a particular reason.

To the 3 top benefits mentioned by Aberdeen Group, we could also add the fact that video collaboration helps HR managers reach a larger pool of candidates since they no longer reject the perfect candidate simply because he or she is located across the country or abroad. The fact is that when HR managers are forced to limit their search for candidates to a certain location, they risk overlooking high-quality talent and skills.

Briefly put, video conferencing simply allows businesses to recruit candidates based on their skill sets, regardless of physical location, as HR can virtually meet with remote applicants anytime, anywhere.

Bogota, October 7, 2015. The successful VoIP provider INTICO launched today an innovative web conferencing solution for its clients: iTalkYou Rooms. iTalkYou Rooms was first presented at the Elastix World conference in Bogota, Colombia. For this service, the Mexican telecommunications provider INTICO is partnering with the US based XmarteK LLC and the Swiss company Veeting AG. iTalkYou Rooms, a white-label version of Veeting Rooms, is hosted on the VoIP provider’s own servers. It is available as an inexpensive monthly and yearly subscription. WebRTC technology with encrypted direct audio and video connections ensures that conference participants enjoy optimal privacy, without having to create logins or install any special software. This makes web meetings with iTalkYou as easy as a phone call or a hallway conversation.

iTalkYou Rooms is more than a simply communications channel: It provides business clients with fully equipped conference rooms for effective online meetings.

Comprehensive Functionality for Business Meetings

The iTalkYou Rooms experience starts with the setting of an agenda during the planning phase and extends all the way to the automatic distribution of minutes. During the meeting, participants can use the whiteboard, text chat in real time, take notes, exchange documents and share the screen. The user-friendly, intuitive interface makes these tasks easy.

High Quality Enhancement of iTalkYou Services

“INTICO is very excited about this venture. iTalkYou Rooms comes to enhance the iTalkYou's user experience through interactive video conferences, integrated to all current iTalkYou features.
Undoubtedly, this allows iTalkYou to stay a step ahead of our competition, where users could take advantage of online meetings in a business environment.” says Oscar Gomez-Osorio, CEO of INTICO

Strong Partnership to Strengthen Position

“We are very enthusiastic about being part of this first venture between the Swiss Veeting and the Latin American INTICO. We are helping to create new service opportunities, new revenue streams and bring cost effective technology to the hand of Latin American users.“ adds Juan Pablo Pazos, CEO of XmarteK

Veeting Rooms Further Strengthens Its Position in the Telecommunications Sector

Launched in 2014, the web conferencing solution Veeting Rooms quickly established itself in the German speaking markets. With INTICO and XmarteK as our partners, Veeting now announces its first partnership in the Americas. One of the service’s core strengths is its flexibility. Fabian Bernhard, the founder and CEO of Veeting AG, says: “We offer attractive white-label versions and full integration into a company’s existing infrastructure. This makes us especially appealing for telecommunications providers. We are thrilled to partner with INTICO and its brand iTalkYou, a very strong contender in this sector.”

About INTICO

INTICO has more than 10 years of experience in the development of communication services and technological innovation. INTICO has the technological infrastructure to offer its services throughout North and South America, as well as to the rest of the world. 

Its customers belong to different sectors of the business environment, such as Banks, Call Centers, Financial Companies, Department Stores, Educational Institutions, Marketing and Service Providers, among others. 

For more information go to www.italkyou.com

About XmarteK LLC

XmarteK, founded in 2005, has been partnering with service providers, application developers and thousands of resellers throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States, bridging technology from Tier1 vendors from all over the world.

XmarteK is starting Cloud Services for its channel and is representing Veeting for the Americas.

For more information go to www.xmartek.com

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility - enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

For more information go to www.veeting.com

As a solution at the forefront of secure video conferencing, Veeting Rooms has seen many interesting use cases. In the education sector, it is experiencing increasing adoption for distance learning. The rich functionality of the platform supports teaching in many ways. But the simple fact that users can see one another face-to-face is still the most important feature—particularly for one client in the U.S. We recently talked with Chelsea Hammond, a Deaf Studies major at Boston University, who offers private instruction as a sign language tutor. She shared her thoughts on how videoconferencing technology enables her teaching efforts. But first, a little history…

It’s Been a Long Road to Long-Distance ASL

Before the invention of modern technology, communication from Europe to America only occurred in the form of letters that made the long voyage from shore to shore by sea-going vessel. In the 1850s, the first transatlantic cable was laid, reducing the long delay to a matter of minutes. Audio was added to the mix with real-time phone communication occurring between New York and London for the first time in the 1920s.

Today, virtual videoconferencing is readily available for most web users, enriching the experience of communication around the globe with visuals. For some, this advance in technology is simply a nice feature. But for people in the ASL community, it means much more. As Chelsea pointed out, “Sign language isn’t just about the hands. You need to be able to see the face and body at the same time.” Full-screen video offers users a chance to share all the nuances of sign language in a way that written communication simply can’t manage.

Real-Time Video Communication Is Making Virtual ASL Easier

A lot has changed in the field of technology and how it impacts the deaf and hard of hearing community in the past few years. In 2008, MobileASL development was initiated in an attempt to provide higher quality video at lower bandwidths—make streaming video more accessible to sign language users on mobile devices. At that time, signing over a telecommunications network was problematic due to latency issues that made hand movements appear jerky and difficult to comprehend. High data usage and drain on battery power were additional concerns. MobileASL utilized compression algorithms to send video over slower networks for use on less powerful mobile phones.

Today, this project is no longer being actively developed. The rise of WebRTC (Real Time Communication) and the proliferation of more powerful generations of smartphones and tablets have resolved many of the issues that plagued real-time video ASL communication. Today, there are a number of web-enabled apps that make visual virtual communication more accessible and less expensive. Veeting Rooms is one of these options. It is compatible with all common web browsers for desktop and laptop use and works on Android phones and tablets with 3G, 4G, or WiFi connection. Apple’s recent interest in WebRTC standards suggests that support in the iOS platform is a possibility in the near future as well.

A US/Swiss Use Case for ASL

Chelsea is a fluent user of ASL (with over 10 years of experience) and enjoys teaching the language to others. Recently, she was invited to try the Veeting platform as a way to tutor a student in Switzerland. Since her current students were all local to the Boston area, she was happy to have an opportunity to try something new. Hammond’s overseas student is not hearing impaired. So, the two converse via audio as well as video and chat, taking advantage of all the options for communication provided on the platform.

Since this student is still young, the lessons are fairly free-flowing with a focus on following the child’s interests and keeping things exciting. According to Chelsea, “The student may learn a song in ASL or have a conversation about a topic of interest.” Their favorite tool in Veeting Rooms is the shared whiteboard. “We use it for ASL Pictionary. The whiteboard has lots of features and we can draw using different colors which makes it fun.”

The built-in document sharing function allows Chelsea to upload worksheets for her student in various file formats. This way, she can offer reminders about guidelines or share other materials that the student can keep and review. For instructors with older students, there are plenty of additional options including agenda and minutes functionality that could be used to generate a lesson plan and assign homework.

As an educator, Chelsea appreciates the ability to communicate with parents using the same easy-to-use technology. Up to 5 participants can join via video at one time. This makes it simple to arrange a quick group call with the student and both parents to coordinate scheduling or have a talk about the lessons.

Remote Learning Can Happen Close to Home

Hammond sees the potential in Veeting Rooms to help ASL tutors manage a student load on a local basis. “The student I’m currently working with is overseas. But I also think the video conferencing is absolutely a good option for local students. It cuts travel time and makes it easier to fit lessons into a schedule.” While the potential of international learning is fascinating, today’s fast-paced educational environment means the right virtual learning tool can be a real time-saver anywhere.

Let’s take a closer look at how Team, Sales and HR management used to be without the appropriate web conferencing and web collaboration tools and how the latter have changed company management for the better.

Team management

Then:

• Traditional teams were also known as conventional or collocated teams and consisted of individuals working in physical proximity. That is why project groups were typically restricted to local employees.
• Team members were largely selected based on their functional skills.
• Project plans were mapped out in MS Project and spreadsheets that had to be manually distributed and kept updated. This meant extra time from the side of the Project Managers.
• Communication was mainly carried out via email, which oftentimes resulted in cluttered inboxes and disordered conversation threads. Furthermore, sending lots of email attachments was cumbersome.
• Retrospective, reactive project updates only happened at fixed-time intervals, which meant that team members could not perform product changes in a continuous rhythm but had to wait for feedback which was only delivered at fixed-time intervals.

Now:

• Teams have centralized access to a live project plan and project managers use an online collaboration platform to manage team efforts and have an overview on all projects.
• Web conferencing technologies allow project managers and team members to work together in real time, by allowing them to host impromptu, interactive meetings with local or internationally based team members to find out the latest status updates or come up with plans to overcome obstacles. The possibility for a team to collaborate on a single record greatly reduces the risk of version control issues that can arise when multiple team members contribute in a team meeting.
• Team members/ employees are selected based on their skills set, regardless of their physical location. The focus lies upon quality rather than proximity.
• Given the fact that communication can take place whenever necessary via web conferencing tools, team members have less emails to worry about.

Sales management

Then:

• Sales representatives had to travel a lot in order to meet clients physically. This highly impacted their personal lives.
• Sales managers had to create a physical portfolio with which they would go to meetings with potential clients. When laptops became mainstream, they would have all the necessary materials stored on their laptop but they still needed to attend sales and business meetings in person, which meant increased travelling costs and significant organizational effort.
• Sales team productivity suffers as a result of travel downtime.

Now:

• The ability to use a web conferencing tool to host effective virtual meetings and do sales pitches from home/ office highly reduces the impact of travel costs on a company’s budget. Sales managers no longer need to travel as often to meet with customers. In addition to the direct costs of travel, hours of otherwise unproductive time are regained.
• The latest web conferencing tools are contributing to the extinction of expensive teleconferences. High-quality multi-user speech through VoIP eliminates the telephone charges that add extra cost to conventional online meetings using a separate telephone conference system.
• Productive sales teams are always on-the-go and this oftentimes means that they need to take meetings from their mobile devices. Web conferencing tools that are easy to use - no downloads, easy one-click access from a computer or phone, easy to navigate, etc. - remove the barriers between the sales teams and their prospects. This allows them to communicate effectively without having to deal with the technology.

HR management

Then:

• It was very costly for companies to invite people for a job interview when they lived abroad. Even though the cost for relocating when hired was ok, the hiring process involved inviting many people (and paying for travels) when in the end they were not hired altogether. In order to save on business travel and relocation costs, HR managers oftentimes recruited only nearby talent. This hampered them from working with the best people out there and obliged them to settle for what was in the reach.

Now:

• As part of the hiring process done via web conferencing tools, HR managers can interview people from all over the world without extra costs involved. Also, HR Managers and line managers can hold meetings without being physically present in the same place.
• Web conferencing tools have also enabled multinational companies to form cross-border teams, where team members can communicate with each other constantly, despite not being located in the same place. This is how technology enables the international expansion that companies seek.
• Other important benefits of using web conferencing tools have to deal with saving on business travel and relocation costs for individual team members. Additionally, dispersed virtual teams also significantly enlarge the pool of available knowledge. An overwhelming majority (83%) of executives in a 2014 Economist Intelligence Unit report agreed that a diverse workforce improves their company’s ability to capture and retain a diverse client base. Culturally diverse virtual teams also stimulate innovation and creativity.

One of the most exciting things about developing a communication platform like ours is seeing the innovative ways people put it to use in improving their lives. We had the opportunity to interview a young woman in the United States recently about her experience using Veeting Rooms technology to tutor a student overseas. Tiffany Yang is a native speaker of Mandarin—and she teaches this elegant language to several students in-person. Recently, she began tutoring a student in Switzerland using our technology platform to provide remote instruction. She revealed her top four favorite features of this software.

#1 Screen Sharing

The screen sharing tool is a feature that Ms. Yang finds most useful. “My student has only been learning Mandarin for a couple of years. If she has a question about something but is having difficulty explaining, she can simply show me what she is talking about on her computer screen. It makes communication easier.”

#2 White Board

During the interview, Tiffany showed us how she uses a touch-responsive mousepad to draw Chinese logograms on the shared whiteboard. The image appears line by line for the student, who can copy the characters one stroke at a time. This collaborative tool allows her to teach the student as if they were side by side in a classroom setting.

#3 Saved Minutes

Homework can be built in to the process using the document sharing, note taking, and white board tools. “During the session, we create a short article a paragraph or so in length that covers a single major idea. This is all saved automatically in the minutes and delivered to the student’s email address. I ask my student to memorize this material for next time.” When the next lesson rolls around, it’s simple to review what has already been covered, making sure the student has practiced.

#4 Real-Time Two-Way Video

As any teacher knows, it can be a challenge to keep a student focused throughout an entire lesson. Without visual cues, it wouldn’t be possible for Ms. Yang to know if her student was paying close attention. With the Veeting software, she can be on the lookout for signs of confusion or fatigue and adjust the pace of the lesson as needed.

We look forward to hearing many more stories of how our video-conferencing tool helps students get more out of their education by connecting with tutors around the world. Share your ideas for how to use Veeting Rooms for education in the comments.

In order to answer this question and understand the benefits of web conferencing solutions for CEOs, we’ve identified three of the most common case scenarios in which they are required to tackle tricky situations, some triggered by lack of time and some by not being physically present in several places at the same time.

Scenario 1: You are on a business trip and need to have a meeting with your sales, marketing or customer support representatives.

Urgent matters don’t wait for you to come home. They require immediate handling, whether you’re in the office or on a business trip. In order to make things easier for you as well as for your employees, use a web conferencing solution that allows you to select participants directly from the Outlook address book and check their availability before creating a meeting. This way you make sure everyone is available and don’t waste time hunting for contacts.

If at this point you are wondering why you can’t just make a simple phone call, the reason is that a phone call reduces efficiency. You can’t share important visual information and more often than not you are limited to voice-only communication. On the other hand, a web conferencing solution allows you to:

• display live slideshows
• share your screen
• draw on a whiteboard

Screen sharing makes it easy for all of the participants to support their statements with visual elements that they find relevant. They can also use a slideshow or invite their colleagues to draw some ideas on a whiteboard to keep them engaged and provide extra information.

At the end of the meeting, every participant receives a copy of the documents presented during the meeting so that they can go over the data again whenever necessary.

Image Source: Pixabay

Scenario 2: You have a video call with a client that is not at all tech-savvy and you need to discuss the strategy for next year.

You have an important client but he is not much into tech stuff and he’s not interested in learning anything new either. Therefore, it would be a real hassle if he had to install complicated software and it would definitely cost you both extra time. In order to avoid this situation altogether, try using a web conferencing solution based on WebRTC technology that allows the client to access the conference room by clicking on a link. It can’t get easier than this! Also, since you will oftentimes need to discuss future strategies, a whiteboard that allows you to draw any supporting graphs and figures will come in handy.

Scenario 3: You’ve found the 3 best people for the job…it is a pity they are located in a different city.

Actually, with web conferencing, you can work with the best people out there and not be restricted by geographical constraints. Furthermore, with the help of web collaboration tools, you can reduce time to market for projects that require dispersed teams to work together. Most importantly, when you are not limited by physical locations, you can bring your winning project team together based on skillset rather than location.

When handling remote employees, virtual meeting rooms simply make meetings much more interactive and efficient as compared to ordinary telephone conference. With one simple, secure login, an employee can attend meetings just as effectively as if she/he were there in person. As a result, regardless of their location, your employees are happier and more productive.

What other scenarios have you had to deal with? Share them with us in the comments section below.

Zürich, September 15, 2015. The internationally successful VoIP provider peoplefone AG announced today the launch of an innovative web conferencing solution for its clients: peoplefone MEET. For this service, the Swiss telecommunications provider is partnering with another Swiss company, Veeting Rooms. peoplefone MEET, a white-label version of Veeting Rooms, is hosted on the VoIP provider’s own servers. It is available as an inexpensive monthly and yearly subscription. WebRTC technology with encrypted direct audio and video connections ensures that conference participants enjoy optimal privacy, without having to create logins or install any special software. This makes web meetings with peoplefone as easy as a phone call or a hallway conversation.

And peoplefone MEET is more than simply a communications channel: It provides clients with fully equipped conference rooms.

Comprehensive Functionality for Business Meetings

The peoplefone MEET experience starts with the setting of an agenda during the planning phase and extends all the way to the automatic distribution of minutes. During the meeting, participants can use the whiteboard, text chat in real time, take notes, exchange documents and share the screen. The user-friendly, intuitive interface makes these tasks easy.

High Quality Enhancement of peoplefone Services

In a recent ranking of telecommunications providers by the Swiss business magazine Bilanz, peoplefone once again made first place in the fixed network/VoIP category. peoplefone founder and CEO Christophe Beaud credits his company’s strategic focus on quality with the success: “Over the course of the last decade, we have established ourselves as a pioneer for VoIP. We carefully select all our partners, and the innovative and mature offering of Veeting Rooms convinced us on all fronts. Our more than 4,000 business clients will enjoy peoplefone MEET especially for its ease of use.”

Veeting Rooms Further Strengthens Its Position in the Telecommunications Sector

Launched in 2014, the web conferencing solution Veeting Rooms quickly established itself in the German speaking markets. One of the service’s core strengths is its flexibility. Fabian Bernhard, the founder and CEO of Veeting AG, says: “We offer direct Veeting subscriptions, attractive white-label versions and full integration into a company’s existing infrastructure. This makes us especially appealing for telecommunications providers. We are thrilled to partner with peoplefone, a very strong contender in this sector.”

About peoplefone

Founded in Zurich in 2005, the peoplefone Group has become a leading provider of VoIP. On a daily basis, more than 50,000 business and individual clients make phone calls using peoplefone. The peoplefone Group has subsidiaries in six European countries: Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovakia and Lithuania. A couple of factors set peoplefone apart. They include a strong team in Switzerland that provides technology and development, the engagement of every staff member in customer service, and close alliances with systems integrators.

For more information go to www.peoplefone.ch / www.peoplefone.de / www.peoplefone.at

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual
meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of
intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings
with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software
installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive
data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software
service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete
range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility -
enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label
versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

For more information go to www.veeting.com

Christian Laux, founding partner of LAUX LAWYERS AG in Zurich, recently began using Veeting Rooms in his practice. He shared his experience with this modern communication platform and offered insights into how such technology should be implemented in the highly regulated legal industry.

Introducing LAUX LAWYERS AG

The firm focuses on IT law, offering representation in matters such as data protection, licensing issues (software development and software distribution), outsourcing matters, and business strategy. “As an IT law firm, we advise clients on how to legally protect the valuable information they collect, comply with regulations, and monetize their data. Much of our work has to do with drafting agreements that safeguard the interests of our clients. We also go to court to litigate if necessary. We're the translator between the judge and the IT guys. It's a very specialized area of law.”

Because LAUX LAWYERS AG has a finely-targeted focus, the firm’s attorneys strictly limit themselves to their core area of expertise. However, clients often have questions and concerns beyond the scope of the IT legal field. For example, a client might have questions about labor law and tax law in addition to information technology law. To provide a more comprehensive service, LAUX LAWYERS AG regularly coordinates with attorneys in other specialties to address the full spectrum of their clients’ needs. As a result, Christian often finds himself managing projects that include a variety of outside providers. Everyone must communicate effectively to achieve the desired outcome for the client.

Coping with the Challenges of Collaboration

Christian described the difficulty of managing complex cases that require ongoing communication among many parties. “There's a lot of internal project management. If you try to manage communication just with email, the email load explodes.” While email works well for simple communication involving small, immediate decisions, the back and forth of a complex conversation quickly becomes unmanageable. Scrolling through page after page of responses is a nightmare. “Email isn't a nice format to collect information about a project. When you search through each email thread, it's difficult to find the relevant information.”

The Veeting Rooms solution provided a tool that was better suited to the way Christian wanted to handle projects. With real-time collaboration, “Everyone is hands-on and transparency is increased. We can all see the same thing, including how notes are taken. There's an audit trail since all the notes and documents are part of the minutes that are automatically generated and sent to the participants at the end of the meeting.”

Knowing that this type of documentation is built-in helps improve accountability and leads to more productive conversations. “Veeting Rooms helps me structure meetings with a definite, actionable outcome in mind so communication is more focused. The decisions we reach in the virtual meeting are turned into tasks and assignments in our project management platform.”

A Virtual Shop Window

One feature of the Veeting Rooms solution that Christian initially thought of as a “nice to have” quickly became a “must have.” During setup, the law firm opted to white-label the virtual meeting portal with the LAUX LAWYERS AG branding. The overwhelming positive response to this presentation took him by surprise. “People who participate in our meetings tell me it looks very neat and professional. It conveys a message of trustworthiness. It's great for marketing and we wouldn't get that same effect with a third party logo on the software.” For a law firm, establishing rapport and credibility in the somewhat impersonal world of online communication is a definite competitive advantage.

The potential for building stronger partnerships was another benefit that came to light once the software was up and running. “We've found it instrumental in exploring collaboration with remote partners. They can get a feel for how we work on a day-to-day basis and really understand our company culture. It's like being able to have a low-risk trial run in developing a business relationship to see if it's a good fit. You can't really do that with email.”

Can the Legal Profession Safely Use Virtual Conferencing?

Christian encourages other attorneys to explore the potential of new technology solutions but cautions them as well. “You have to understand more than just the features of the solution. You need to find out how the technology is set up so that you can assess compliance.” This was a critical concern for LAUX LAWYERS AG in choosing a video-conference vendor. “Regulations for the legal industry are very strict. I personally would have been happy to have Veeting Rooms host the software on their secure servers. But if a supervising authority comes around with questions about how I use my IT infrastructure, I have to be able to demonstrate that I'm working in a compliant manner.” Fortunately, this proprietary software was easily installed on-premise for the firm to ensure full adherence to legal regulations.

In fact, what impressed Christian most about the solution was how straightforward it was to implement. “It's not a huge project to set up the software. I had an initial discussion with Fabian and he gave me a short list of items he needed from me and they were all simple things to provide. The wait time from the decision to roll out Veeting Rooms to when it was up and running was quite short. Fabian was proactive in taking care of the installation.”

A quick and seamless deployment enabled LAUX LAWYERS AG to start using the application with no trouble. That’s how it should be. In the end, getting business done quickly and properly is the greatest benefit of a virtual meeting room system.

With a well-developed solution and flexibility in deployment based on each client’s needs, Veeting Rooms is equipped to serve a wide range of industries. To learn more, contact sales@veeting.com.

Zurich, September 3, 2015. Veeting Rooms, the Swiss web conferencing solution for business meetings, announced today the addition of exciting new features. To further drive product development, the company has also named Rolf Kuster as its new CTO. The new products include Off-The-Record Veetings, which — by bypassing servers — prevent eavesdropping and offer maximum data privacy. Additionally, companies will be able to brand all Veeting Rooms with their own corporate identity. Thanks to SIP integration, partners for white-label versions can now offer Veetings dial-in via telephone. And direct white-label clients will benefit from a new single-sign-on functionality. With the comprehensive product launch, Veeting Rooms is underscoring its focus on data privacy and customer convenience.

“We at Veeting Rooms have a clear vision,” says Fabian Bernhard, the founder and CEO of Veeting AG. “Entering and using a virtual conference room must be just as easy and secure as a meeting in the office hallway. And we want to offer each client a solution that is optimized — from pricing models and white-label versions to the integration into a company’s infrastructure. This is how we prioritize the development of our service.”

WebRTC Data Channel Allows for Secure Off-The-Record Meetings

With Off-The-Record Veetings, Veeting Rooms is now offering a new type of web conferencing that allows for even more privacy when exchanging highly sensitive data. These Veetings, which prohibit eavesdropping at no additional cost, make use of a WebRTC data channel that bypasses all servers and allows meeting participants to communicate directly. The new feature is perfect for those who are looking for maximum privacy. Customers who enjoy receiving an automated meeting summary can still opt for our Standard Veetings, which run on servers in Switzerland and must comply with the country’s strict privacy laws.

New Branding Options for Veeting Rooms

For Veeting Rooms, the needs of business clients are a top priority, and branding is one of their expectations. Thanks to a new, complimentary feature, they can now add their own branding, i.e. logo and color scheme, to a meeting room.

SIP Integration for White-Label Partners

In the telecommunications sector, resellers of the white-label version of Veeting Rooms benefit because the Swiss company now connects innovative webRTC technology with existing telephone standards and offers SIP integration. Any white-label version of Veeting Rooms can be connected to a company’s existing telephone system to support web-conference dial-in via telephone.

Multiple Applications, One Log-In: Veeting Rooms Adopts Single Sign-On

Veeting Rooms now supports single sign-on protocols/standards/mechanisms such as OAuth, SAML, LDAP and Windows Authentication. This means that partners with white-label versions hosted on company servers can integrate Veeting Rooms even more easily into their existing infrastructure.

On to New Growth With CTO Rolf Kuster

With the appointment of Rolf Kuster to the position of Chief Technology Officer, Veeting CEO Fabian Bernhard has brought an experienced technology leader on board. Kuster, who will further develop and expand the company’s services, has held key positions in product development, and building alliances with customers (e.g. at iscoord AG and at Zurich Insurance.) He has a solid background in network architecture and in the development and implementation of new technologies. Drawing on a global network and connections to international partners, he will support Veeting Rooms as it enters new markets. “Last year we expanded successfully from our local market, Switzerland, to Germany and Austria,” says Veeting CEO Fabian Bernhard. “Our next step is to establish Veeting Rooms in the U.S.A. and in South America. Rolf Kuster is the perfect appointment for this goal.”

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility - enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

For more information go to www.veeting.com

That is why, if you want your team to say yes to web collaboration via WebRTC, you must first identify their most common objections:

• They don’t really understand the benefits. How will web collaboration make things better for us?
• They are reluctant to change. They just like things the way they are and say “no” to any new approach which may bring changes to their current work pattern.
• They see it as a waste of time rather than a time-saving opportunity. Your employees’ main argument sounds like this: “We don’t have time for our current tasks. How will we find time to implement this new technology? Let’s leave it for some other time.”
• They think it’s just one of the CEO’s or CTO’s extravagant ideas and just believe that it’s not going to work anyway.

What you need to tell them in order to actually get them to say yes:

Ease of use.

No installation! It’s extremely easy to use and requires little technical know-how, meaning that technical representatives won’t need to spend time explaining others how to use it.

Ease of integration.

This means that you can attach it to workflows, CRMs so that you have access to the existing information/database, login with LinkedIn, Xing or any corporate network. Plus, it guarantees Secure Sales, given that all audio and video communication is end-to-end encrypted using DTLS-SRTP. This provides an additional layer of security, because the audio and video streams are encrypted by the sender and not decrypted until they are received by the recipient.

Image Source: Realistic Shot

It brings people together.

Many times teams are not located in the same building / city / country as the corporate headquarters. WebRTC eases the communication and collaboration burden on the staff. If video conferencing used to be a scheduled event that required lead time to book a conference room, with WebRTC, team members can launch impromptu video calls without the need for prior scheduling. Furthermore, the communication is not only limited to video. Through web collaboration, team members can share their knowledge by uploading and sharing documents and presentations with all meeting participants.

Ideal for customer support and sales.

If they are providing support or sales consulting to customers, your team will significantly benefit from using WebRTC. Firstly, it’s hassle-free for customers. All they need to do is click on a link and access the video conference. This can be done within seconds. Therefore, any IT problem that arises can be dealt with immediately.

Real-time collaboration.

WebRTC enables real-time video communications in browsers without the need for downloads, plug-ins or installs that have reduced end-user adoption of other forms of video technologies.

Over the years, Skype has become synonymous with Internet calls, being less about collaboration and more about communication. Imagine that you are in a business meeting and you want to share a document with the participants and discuss it. Veeting Rooms allows you to share documents live on screen with all the participants. Meeting participants no longer get lost in large documents wondering on what page the presenter is on. As a presenter you can even mark important information within the document with the annotation tool which makes your meeting more interactive.

Those are the main reasons why it’s best to use a safe channel of communication within the company, as well as with other business partners. WebRTC represents a secure alternative to Skype for VoIP, video chat or video conferencing. It fully supports collaboration which, more often than not, leads to progress.

In this sense, finding the right tools that can make their lives easier while streamlining the processes, is a very important step. Here are seven things that CEOs can do with a web collaboration tool:

Work anywhere

It may sound like mission impossible for many CEOs. Not if you have the right tool at hand. Once you’ve found a web collaboration tool that doesn’t require any installation and is easy to use by all company employees, you’ll be empowered to complete tasks and attend meetings in the location that works best for you.

Better manage virtual teams

Nowadays, communication and web collaboration tools have proven to be extremely helpful when managing distributed workforces scattered all over. They not only allow CEOs to delegate activities but also manage employees by staying in permanent contact regardless of where they are. Furthermore, team members can access information and work together with others all in a single place without the need to physically be in the same room.

Increase productivity

Getting a group of people together for an in-person meeting can be very difficult, not to mention the time wasted with getting to the meeting, waiting for the rest to show up, going back to your desk, etc. On the other hand, using a "find a date" tool to easily find a time when all your meeting participants are available, can make things completely different. When everyone is able to easily schedule their meetings and join them from their desks, they feel comfortable and have all the necessary resources to get things done. Most importantly, at the end of the meeting everyone can return to their original tasks, which makes the process of mental switching between activities less time-consuming.

Aiming for Inbox 0

In order to avoid becoming a slave to your inbox by using it as a sole medium of communication with your employees and constantly get interrupted during day-to-day tasks to make sure you aren’t missing anything, try using a web collaboration tool that has real-time text chat functionalities. This will help you and your employees avoid the email trap while allowing you to focus on the task at hand.

Reduce company traveling costs by eliminating geographical barriers

One of the main goals for CEOs is making the company profitable and grow. That is why it’s extremely important to find ways of keeping the overall cost under control. With CEOs, founders and sales representatives needing to be in several places at the same time, traveling eats up a lot of the company’s financial resources. Therefore, there is always pressure to reduce cost by diminishing the allocated traveling budget. The good news is that these people can still overcome geographical barriers and keep costs to a minimum by using a web collaboration tool that allows them to be in permanent contact with both the company as well as the clients.

Image Source: Pixabay

Handle Remote Employees

Although you may think that this could also be done via telephone, the truth is that web conferencing is in many ways different from web collaboration. Virtual meeting rooms simply make meetings much more interactive and efficient as compared to ordinary telephone conference. Through a web collaboration tool, you have access to a number of features including access to a whiteboard, the possibility to share supporting documents and display live slideshows, etc. This is one of the reasons why, by using web collaboration tools, employees can work from home, a practice that is rising in popularity. With one simple, secure login, an employee can attend meetings just as effectively as if she/he were there in person. As a result, your employees are happier which in turn leads to increased productivity levels.

Keep up with Innovation

Via web collaboration tools, CEOs can organise and attend events (meetings or discussions) on latest industry trends and developments, without the need to travel thousands of kilometers and spend large amounts of money to access key insights.

If you are a CEO in search for a web collaboration tool, make sure you choose one that allows you to:

• View Your Calendar
• Schedule Your Meeting Easily
• Set Your Meeting Agenda
• Perform both Voice and Video Conferencing
• Display Live Slideshows
• Share Your Screen
• Access a Whiteboard
• Share Supporting Documents
• Engage with Real-Time Text Chat

Veeting Rooms

Zurich, July 07, 2015. Web based business meetings that are as easy as a phone call: Effective immediately, German TeamFON, a leader in cloud based telephone systems, is offering “TeamFON Web Meeting.” A trendsetting, browser based videoconferencing solution, “TeamFON Web Meeting” does not require the installation of any special software. The service comes with an intuitive interface and a variety of features such as data exchange, live presentations and screen sharing. Thanks to WebRTC technology, its encrypted direct audio and video connections provide a high degree of security. In addition to being easy to use, TeamFON’s innovative service is available as an inexpensive monthly subscription or in the form of variable on-demand packages. TeamFON runs “TeamFON Web Meeting,” a white-label version of Veeting Rooms, from its own secure hosting facilities in Munich.

“Since our company’s beginnings in 2005, we have bet on cloud based telecommunications solutions and established ourselves as a leader in the field,” Thomas Weiss, Managing Director at TeamFON, says. “Veeting Rooms with its innovative approach and use of WebRTC standards is the perfect fit for our product line. Now our clients can get together easily in virtual meetings.” Fabian Bernhard, the founder and CEO of Veeting AG, adds: “The collaboration with TeamFON underlines a strength of our product; with the white-label version of Veeting Rooms, our partners can provide an attractive web videoconferencing solution that is based on the most advanced standards. They can occupy an increasingly important segment in business communications, without having to pay for development.”

About TeamFON

Advanced technology “Made in Bavaria”: Founded in 2005, TeamFON (www.teamfon.com)is on the cutting edge of cloud based virtual telephone systems and mobile IP telephony. The “TeamSIP Centrex” solution created by TeamFON offers comprehensive Unified Communications features and also integrates with back end systems (ERP, CRM and more.) ISO 27001 certified since 2014 and a Connect magazine test winner in June 2013, TeamFON delivers excellent communication quality even with a standard Internet connection. TeamFON solutions can scale to 100,000 extensions and may include high-end IP telephones as well as personal support and individual VOIP programming. They are distributed by partners in retail, systems integrators, carriers and cloud-distributors (Acmeo.) In 2015, TeamFON was recognized for its channel partner program by the magazine Channelpartner.

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility - enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

For more information go to www.veeting.com

The disruption of the communication market happens right now. Whereas until now we had one communication tool for everything, soon we can communicate in every tool.

The evolution of telecommunication was always about making communication faster, richer, and more widely available. If you are interested in learning more about the history of communication, I have written a short piece a few weeks back.

We are now at a stage where we have super rich web conferencing solutions readily available on every computer and smart phone. The prevailing story throughout all these developments is that it was the communication tool that improved, morphed and re-invented itself. This development is comparable to the story of the horse that became a racing car and a truck.

One of the big topics in the Unified Communication (UC) market is the context of communication:

• You talk to customers and would like to have customer information displayed alongside the video stream.
• You talk to new leads and would like to show your sales presentation while speaking.
• You have a team meeting and want to pull up documents discussed previously.

In all these cases you want to enrich the communication with context.

If I was drawing a diagram I would use a star alongside the old saying that “all roads lead to Rome”, i.e. whatever the context is, we use the same communication tool. Rome fell and I believe that this strategy will fail too.

The disruption of the UC market began with WebRTC. WebRTC is not just another type of a car, to come back to the analogy above. Instead, WebRTC is like a garage, it allows you to build any type of car. And with this we can now change the evolution of UC clients, we can change its direction, we can and are changing the future of communication. From today on, we bring the communication tool to the context rather than bringing context to the communication tool. This is a big change of mindset and a market that is just being created now.

We first announced an integration into the email client Mailbird. This brings communication right into the context of any email conversation you have.

We are working on other integrations to be announced later on. The big picture here is that we can bring communication to where there were no communication capabilities before. We enable people to communicate in their own context. That's something that was unseen, a blue ocean that is just being discovered now.

This week I want to take the opportunity to look back in time and see how distance communication has evolved over time, from smoke signals to Veeting Rooms.

A brief review of communication through the ages

Smoke signals and drum communication are among the earliest form of known real time distance communication. Smoke signals only allowed a very limited type of communication whereas drums were used skilfully to mimic the tones and sounds of spoken languages.

Communication in writing goes back a long way too, nearly back to when written language itself was invented. One would write a message and send someone to deliver it to a recipient. There’s a delay between the receipt of a message and the response, even if that’s just the time required to compose a reply and send it back. These forms of communication serve an important purpose. Having the option to think before responding, or even the option not to respond is a powerful tool in negotiation. There is also a physical delivery which allows the exchange of signed contracts, for instance.

The first organised courier service goes back to ancient Egypt where Pharaohs used couriers to deliver messages within the state at around 2400 BC. Privately hired couriers and pigeons delivered messages for hundreds of years until the first formal postal services were invented in ancient Persia (Iran) and later in China and India, with the “cursus publicus” of the Roman Empire being one of the earliest European examples. King Charles I made the services of the Royal Mail available to UK citizens in the 1600s and the U.S. created its own mail system in the late 1700s.

This was the time that also saw the invention of the French “Chappe system”, or, how it is more commonly known, the Semaphore line. This system was much faster than post riders and delivered messages using a network of towers built across the country. On each tower was a mechanical construction that allowed the display of symbols big enough so that someone on the next tower would be able to see and read these symbols. With this system it was possible to deliver a message from Lille to Paris (230 kilometre distance) in a bit more than 30 minutes.

With the first telegraph in 1837 the delivery of messages became even quicker. While fax machines were first invented during the 1800s as well, the first commercial fax equipment was made available by Xerox in the 1960s. Finally, the 1990s saw the introduction of email which brought the cost and time of delivery down to nearly zero, no matter how far apart the recipients are.

Business communication in modern times

Television was invented in the 1920s, but two-way video communication came much later. Video conferencing first became an established part of the commercial scene in the 1980s, around the same time that mobile phones became widely available. Texting and real-time chat enhanced the usage of mobile phones and computers, giving businesses more options for “always on” or instant connection.

Today, affordable and convenient audiovisual technology has brought business communication almost full-circle. While participants may physically be far away from one another, they do speak face-to-face. They are simply using a web-based video conferencing platform that also supports live chat, document sharing, and many other forms of collaboration such as Veeting Rooms.

Where we go from here?

Who would have thought 100 or even 20 years ago that we can communicate and collaborate in real-time like we can today, with the only burden being available bandwidth and time zones? It seams as if we have reached the end of an evolution, as if what we have now is the final stage of a development that took thousands of years. How can we further improve our means of communication, besides more bandwidth and better encryption for better privacy?

Our core business is communication. Veeting has a wonderfully rich platform with HD voice capabilities and collaboration tools. I love to “Veet”, it makes communication so much easier.

Even though I spend a lot of my time talking on Veeting, I sometimes ask myself how I managed to do business a few years back when low bitrate codecs where the norm rather than the exception.

Just this morning I had one of these old-fashioned collaborative telephone calls. I sent someone a PDF a few days back for some feedback. He called me and we went through the slides. The voice quality was terrible, we had trouble staying “on the same page”. I was still on slide two whereas he was already talking about slide four and ideas got lost and confusion arose. Everyday business in the old days, horribly inefficient.

At some point we decided to switch to Veeting. It didn’t occur to me at first since we always spoke on the phone before. A minute later we met on Veeting, the voice quality was clear and we breezed through our presentation together using our virtual laser pointer to highlight stuff, moving back and forth on the whiteboard and coming to a common understanding within 15 minutes. A wonderful new world of rich communication!

Lots of people talk about “contextual communication”. Ericsson describes it as “bringing together the right information at the right time with the right group of people to collaborate and solve tasks“. We human beings are very adaptive, we use what we have available and adopt the tools and ways of communication accordingly. For instance, I hardly ever speak on the phone with my family. We use LINE and WhatsApp. On the other hand, even though I have quite a few business contacts in WhatsApp it is a strict “no-go” to ever talk business with these apps. For business it is exclusively email, phone, and of course Veeting. I would not “Veet” just to find a meeting date or arrange a lunch meeting, on the other hand, discussing slide decks on the phone is just not an option any more.

How do you use different communication channels in different contexts?

At Veeting we take data privacy seriously. Our mission is to provide secure communication and collaboration solutions without compromising user experience and usability. That is, our users - YOU - are the focus of our attention.

Over the past month we have been working hard to advance our system even more. We took the extra mile to offer you even more privacy for your business meetings. A new “off-the-record” meeting will allow you to meet your customers safe in the knowledge that none of your meeting data is cached on our servers at all.

How is this different to the current solution?

At the moment, when you upload a document or write your meeting minutes, the data is sent to our Swiss hosted servers for your convenience. It allows the system to send you a handy meeting summary by email, you can go back to your meeting data at any point and review all the documents related to that meeting. Is it secure? Yes! All data is transmitted in an encrypted way at all times. Still, on our Swiss servers, the data is not encrypted. If it was we couldn’t send you a meeting summary. We are legally bound not to touch your data too. Still, you have to trust us and our legal system to some extent.

With our new, unique “off-the-record” meetings you get complete peace of mind that your data is out of bounds to everyone except you. None of your meeting data will ever touch our servers in clear text! That is, you will be able to meet your customers and team in complete privacy, “off-the-record”.

How does it work?

Once you join a Veeting our servers will get you in touch with your other meeting participants. Our application will figure out how to most efficiently talk to them. The application will set up a secure, end-to-end encrypted communication channel between you and your other participants. This happens within seconds after you have joined the meeting. Once you are in and connected, the system will send everything, from your video to your documents, the meeting minutes and the whiteboard directly to the other browsers, all securely encrypted. Once you decide to leave the meeting you conveniently press a button and download a ZIP file with all the documents to your desktop. That easy and that private!

How can I get it?

We are testing our new meeting solution in a private test group at the moment. There is still the odd wrinkle or two that we need to iron out before prime time. We expect to be ready within a month at the latest. Then it will be available to all our existing and future customers, at no extra charge!

Do you have questions? feedback@veeting.com

Mailbird users can now schedule a Veeting directly from within their email conversations. A click on a button lets them schedule a Veeting with everyone involved in the email conversation. Sometimes things just get done quicker when you talk face to face!

The Veeting app runs either in the dedicated sidebar for apps or as a full window view. The new Mailbird UI makes it really easy to switch between the two views. You can focus completely on the meeting and easily open related email conversations when needed.

We had great fun working with the Mailbird team! They are based half way across the globe in Indonesia's wonderful Bali, seven hours ahead of us. With emails and Veetings we managed to make this partnership project a success.

Michael Bodekaer of Mailbird says: "This partnership is an important milestone for Veeting as well as Mailbird, as it proves the extensibility and ease of integration of our partners applications into the Mailbird platform. We are excited to bring Veeting out to our large user base who will benefit greatly from the secure video meetings provided by Veeting."

The result of our work finally pays off: all communication channels you need come in one single software package: Mailbird, the best email client for Windows!

Read more about how you can integrate Veeting Rooms into your own solution.

Zurich, November 12, 2014. Two Swiss virtues, neutrality and discretion, prime an innovative solution for web based business meetings for success in the German speaking market. Veeting Rooms (www.veeting.com) a unique provider in the industry, adheres to strict Swiss data privacy laws. The service does not require the installation of any special software. And conference participants need not create an account. Thanks to innovative technology Veeting Rooms meetings run directly in the browser, with no plugins required. But the solution offers more than a communications channel. Veeting Rooms provides all the user-friendly tools that make business meetings productive. When it comes to pricing, the new service sets itself apart by offering subscription based as well as pay-as-you-go services. The packages are especially attractive for small or medium-size businesses that, in the past, may have used a service such as Skype. Enhanced data security, easy access, flexible pricing, high functionality for business clients: This is how Veeting Rooms is establishing itself as the European alternative to traditional audio and videoconferencing solutions.

Having launched successfully on the company’s home turf in Switzerland, Veeting Rooms is now expanding into the entire German speaking market with a communications campaign and precisely targeted distribution activities. The company’s founder and CEO, Fabian Bernhard, says about the service’s great potential: “Access to our virtual meeting rooms is simple. There are no technical barriers, and all our tools are extremely easy to use. During the many years I worked in the financial and telecommunications sectors this was exactly the service that was always missing. Also, many companies long for solutions that pay special attention to data privacy — which is one of Veeting Rooms’ strengths.”

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility - enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

For more information go to www.veeting.com

Private vs. Public Speech in Business

In the world of business, a breach of confidentiality can easily be used to harm a company’s reputation. For example, an executive might make a comment in a private conversation that could be misconstrued when taken out of context. A simple expression of opinion could be taken as a statement of fact, a matter of corporate policy, or even libel—with serious legal and public relations ramifications.

Privacy Regulations Are Nothing New

Every time a new form of communication has become available, unscrupulous parties have used their ability to access private information for nefarious purposes. Daniel Solove’s paper "A Brief History of Information Privacy Law" provides a fascinating overview of privacy legislation in the United States.

For example:

• In the American colonies, eavesdropping was a punishable offense.
• Opening another person’s mail was made illegal shortly after the establishment of the U.S. postal service.
• Wiretapping was invented just after the telegraph came into common use.
• Laws were written to restrict the publication of a person’s photographic likeness without their consent soon after the Kodak instant camera came onto the market.
• Legislation to protect telephone and internet privacy followed the introduction of these modern technologies as well.

Your Business Has the Right to Privacy in Communication

The fear of undue scrutiny stifles healthy discussion and debate. It is the right of an organization and those it serves to determine how and when certain types of information are made public. Keeping communication private benefits businesses by:

• Supporting good decision-making by promoting honest communication
• Maintaining a competitive advantage by preventing the theft of intellectual property
• Protecting personal information and preserving the trust of clients, customers, or patients
• Mitigating the risk of legal, financial, and ethical consequences from breaches of privacy

Protecting Privacy in Today’s Business World

Both the United States and the EU have dozens of statutes on the books to protect business data and communication. However, these regulations often fail to adequately protect businesses and individuals. Businesses should proactively take additional administrative, legal, procedural, and technological steps to safeguard their company communications at all times.

In our view one of the best decisions businesses can make is to ensure that your data is stored in a jurisdiction that will adequately protect it.

What steps are you taking to protect your online communication?

However, the advent of inexpensive technology along with web-based delivery models has radically changed the balance of power. Now, big business is burdened with the mounting costs of maintaining and updating legacy systems while smaller companies are free to access newer, best-of-breed software solutions with even a modest budget. Large companies with thousands of employees are now hard-pressed to justify the excessive cost per-person of managing software in-house. Software as a Service (SaaS) is becoming a more and more attractive option for the enterprise.

The Hidden Costs of Installing Traditional Software

Installing out-of-the-box programs via downloadable images is the traditional method for rolling out software in the enterprise. It might seem like a simple centralized process, but there can be many pitfalls that increase the cost and decrease ROI. These costs go above and beyond the high price of licensing and maintenance agreements.

In the best case scenario, in-house sysadmins write an installation script to propagate the software across all PCs and laptops on the network at a predetermined time. The script must be tested prior to rollout of new software. This isn’t simply a matter of determining if an application works. It must be tested for compatibility with existing installed programs.

What Happens When Things Go Wrong?

New software always has the potential to break programs that are already installed and working fine. If the affected programs are mission-critical, the financial impact can be significant. At the catastrophic level, improperly tested and configured software may even break operating systems. Cache thrash and writing conflicts can cause complete system failure when new programs compete with existing software for limited resources. A business filled with blue screens is one that certainly isn’t seeing good ROI from their installed software.

Sometimes, the software from the vendor isn’t where the problem originates. An enterprise that rolls out updates to existing operating systems may find that programs that used to work fine now have glitches. So, while updates may be delivered “free”, they can cause problems that come with a substantial price tag. While IT is trying to remedy these issues, affected employees lose productivity, further impacting the ability of enterprise to remain profitable.

Improving the Bottom Line for Big Business

Small companies are enjoying the ability to pay for web-based software on a subscription basis since this approach enables them to access a better class of resources. However, the potential for real cost reduction is much greater for larger companies than for smaller ones in terms of dollars saved and percentage decrease in spending. Here are a few of the reasons why:

• No software is downloaded to local networks or machines. All software is fully functional over the web for “instant-on” use. Implementation is usually quick and easy. Adoption rates for well-designed SaaS solutions are high.
• Compatibility testing is eliminated since SaaS operates in a browser. As long as the browser is compatible with enterprise systems, there is no potential for conflict. There is no need to retest software when a new O/S is rolled out. Only the browser needs testing.
• Enterprise class customers don’t have to miss opportunities and lag behind smaller, more agile companies. All SaaS programs are updated centrally by the vendor and made available immediately (typically with no extra charge).
• IT can focus on core business objectives rather than software maintenance. Issues like uptime, security, and data privacy are handled by the vendors who specialize in keeping their SaaS solutions available and secure.

Big businesses can also mitigate risk with cheaper and simpler contingency planning since software is hosted at remote locations rather than on-premise. Disaster or damage to local enterprise servers has no impact on the SaaS solution. This is particularly relevant for business communication systems. When the unexpected happens, using SaaS might be what saves the day.

Its privacy policy states "Ello is a platform built for posting and sharing public content. You should assume that anything you post on Ello other than private messages will be accessed by others"

That makes perfect sense, it is a public network after all. You want your opinions to be known, you want to be followed and adored. Ello though is allowing its users to be anonymous too if they want to be. Anonymity is protection you'd assume. And yes it is within Ello, but not necessarily outside.

Ello also states "We may also collect and store an anonymized version of your IP address, which we may use to protect Ello and its users from spam, viruses, identity theft, illegal or harmful activities". This sounds reassuring. All well and good.

Ellos privacy policy goes on: "Ello uses an anonymized version of Google Analytics to gather and aggregate general information about user behavior. To the best of our knowledge, the information gathered by Google on Ello’s behalf is collected in such a way that neither Ello, nor Google, can easily trace saved information back to any individual user".

User tracking is not only useful but essential in order to figure out what your users are doing. What pages they like to visit, what features they use the most and so on. But there are ways to track your users behavior without handing it off to other sites to make use of.

We simply don't want to take the chance with our users data. We don't want to take the chance that our users metadata would bleed out of our site to content serving sites and usage tracking mega sites who can fill in the blanks to form a complete picture of our users internet activity and identity.

A quick check of Ellos site however will reveal that at the time of going to press it is clear that actually they haven't incorporated any user tracking at all. Since I haven't got my account yet I can only assume that perhaps they turn it on for members only.

In the end, driven by investors, they will need to earn revenue and it's hard to see how they are going to turn a profit if they are shunning advertisers and those who will pay to benefit from usage data.

Thankfully we at Veeting don't have these dilemmas. Privacy has always been and will always remain central to our offering. Privacy to us means "looking after our customers best interests" even if we forego revenue from advertising and data.

We only charge for and earn revenue from our core services, online audio and video meetings. Traffic doesn't bleed away from our site in the form of analytics data that benefits the likes of Google & Co. Our data streams are locked down and even if they did end up going through GCHQ or the NSA they couldn't eavesdrop on it.
We don't take that chance anyway. Basing our service in one of the most surveillance averse countries in the world, Switzerland, we believe that we are serving our customers in the best way possible.

Successful Angel Investment Round

Zurich, September 25 2014. **The Swiss web conferencing startup Veeting Rooms (www.veeting.com) today announced that it has successfully raised CHF 200'000 in an Angel investment round. The transaction strengthens the already solid foundation of the company and allows the acceleration of the product pipeline output and expansion of its market presence. ** Veeting Rooms is an enterprise strength Software as a Service (SaaS) web conferencing solution with an extra focus on privacy and confidentiality. It integrates with Microsoft Outlook and enables its customers worldwide to conduct browser based business meetings with the security of an end-to-end encrypted audio and video conferencing system.

The software will be licensable to run in-house in global enterprises and in specially certified data centers of selected resellers. Companies will also be able to procure white label versions in order to utilise their own corporate branding.

Use of funds

This funding round enables Veeting Ltd to accelerate its product pipeline output and to expand its market presence and sales efforts. Primary target markets include SME’s in the financial and health care industry in the English and German speaking regions of the world.

Board of Directors

The newly founded board of directors consist of Fabian Bernhard, founder and CEO of Veeting Rooms, Hal Philipp, founder of Quantum Research Group Ltd (acquired by Atmel in 2008) and Meridian Growth Capital, and Boston-based Philip Rauh of Clintara. “Veeting's browser-based, highly secure online conferencing technology brings an exciting new option to the online conferencing world. Since it is client side encrypted using WebRTC and is 100% Swiss-based, it allows business users to experience ultra-private video conferencing without the hassle of downloading a special application. This, and the considerable talents and enthusiasm of the founder Fabian Bernhard, made my investment decision easy” says investor Hal Philipp. “At Veeting we are excited to have highly successful personalities such as Hal Philipp, Philip Rauh and Silicon Valley marketing executive Stefano Lindt on board. Their contribution and guidance regarding corporate licenses and white label versions will dramatically improve customer acceptance and satisfaction going forward.”, says Fabian Bernhard.

Solution benefits

Businesses under time and cost pressure are looking to increase their use of online virtual meeting and collaboration services and need to conduct these in a confidential and secure environment. Being able to schedule and conduct virtual meetings with anyone around the world directly from the desktop or mobile device improves cost and convenience factors. Video conferencing solutions have been around for some time but never have they been easier and more private than today. “I am excited to be a part of Veeting. There is room for improvement in the video conferencing industry and Veeting offers clients the chance of combining a customer oriented, high quality service with a high level of data privacy and transparency.”, explains Philip Rauh, member of the board of Veeting Ltd.

About Veeting AG

Veeting AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich that has been offering virtual meeting rooms for successful business with Veeting Rooms since 2014. The WebRTC platform includes a range of intuitive features and offers attractive white-label versions for resellers and companies who value web meetings with their own branding. Veeting Rooms provides easy access without the need for registration or software installation. Thanks to encrypted audio and video conferencing directly in the web browser as well as exclusive data storage in Switzerland, users benefit from a high level of security, even for sensitive data. The software service runs on all common operating systems and is available as a progressive web app offering the complete range of functions on all mobile devices. Veeting Rooms offers its customers a high degree of flexibility - enabling them to book individual Veetings, sign up for monthly subscriptions or quickly set up white label versions of the platform. Whichever way: With Veeting Rooms, virtual meetings are as easy as a phone call.

For more information go to www.veeting.com

Something that we at Veeting have always known and why we designed our service to accommodate audio only meetings as well as video meetings: Not everyone wants to use video all the time. This is also one of the conclusions arrived at in new research compiled by telecom technology review company Software Advice.

Users clearly need video conferencing for training, interviewing and onboarding (where it is useful to see peoples reactions and to read body language) while preferring to use audio for internal communications with colleagues, HR or management.

Something which might not go down well in a video meeting though: People love to multitask while audio conferencing doing everything from filing their nails and surfing the web to catching up on other work.

Ease of setup is another reason people tend to go for audio solutions over video although nowadays it's so simple to join a video meeting with a single link sent in an email or sms that we expect this attitude to change in time.

The humble telephone is still a huge enabler of audio meetings but as a hot desker myself I have to say that I prefer to use my own personal headset (Jaybird BlueBuds) when on the move. For reasons of hygiene you can't be too careful nowadays !

Veeting Rooms is built to be simple: An audio and or video conferencing service that just works in your browser (including your mobile browser). You schedule meetings and mail your participants a link that they click on to join the meeting. Your meeting fires up and you can choose to go video or audio. Seriously easy. And if you get tired of filing your nails you can use our built in collaboration tools, the whiteboard, the slide show viewer or share your desktop.