Last week, January 22, 2008, TANDBERG missed a big opportunity to position itself as a leader in the growth dimensions of video conferencing.

The issue: the announcement of the Codian MSE 8321, a 'super MCU' gateway capable of enormous capacity.

The problem: touted as capable of supporting 1,000 concurrent ISDN-IP video conferencing calls, and later in the fine print, up to 180 HD sessions (in a future release) the product announcement is premature and flawed.

What should have happened?

To reinforce the company's leadership in HD, they should have waited with the product announcement until the HD functionality is included, and then when available (or within reach), market that capability NOT the ISDN gateway functionality. The press release should have been all about the future of HD, not the legacy of ISDN.

ISDN is the legacy networking service that is only one step up from dialup modems. Who cares about ISDN? It's a legacy, declining and poor performing video conferencing service.

To be positioned as a leader means that TANDBERG needs to pick up the pace of HD and Telepresence announcements not the pace of ISDN and SD announcements. 

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