Desktop Sharing to a Million Participants with RHUB's Live Streaming Servers

RHUB's secure Live Streaming Server supports HD audio/video/desktop live streaming for up to a million participants, for those critical "All Hands" meetings. It eliminates high internet bandwidth burden thanks to on-premise, CDN deployment fully utilizing the company's LAN. Participants can quickly and easily join sessions from any computer or mobile device (IOS or Android) via browser. Collaboration Technologies is a European Distributor for RHUB Communications. 

The Live Streaming server enable multiple panellists from anywhere over the internet to engage large audiences via sharing desktop, HD video and audio. The host can assign any panellist to present and all panellist can collectively answer any questions from participants in real-time. 

All RHUB servers run on-premise providing the ultimate security for important meetings such as financial presentations, proprietary corporate training and many more. 

RHUB Live Streaming reduces streaming delay from typical 40 seconds to 3 seconds enabling interactivity via chat and polling. This interactivity improves the meeting experience for all participants. 

"The ability to daisy chain servers makes this system ideal for companies with multiple campuses that wish to hold company-wide meeting such as "All Hands". The companies no longer need to consume high internet bandwidth to support large meetings. Each campus can have one or more servers to redistribute the live streaming content to local networks," said David Coleman, Senior Analyst at Collaborative Strategies, Inc. 

RHUB provides award winning on-premise, real-time collaboration servers that allow workgroups to: quickly host secure internal meetings with co-workers: for sales reps to host external sales presentation with clients: for thought leaders to facilitate educational webinars and training sessions; for companies to hold all-hands meeting with up to one million employees: for IT pros to conduct remote support sessions to manage computer tech issues and for workers to remotely access their desktops in office or home while on-the-go, and more. 

About RHUB Communications

RHUB Communications is a premier provider of real-time collaboration servers for hosting web conferences, video conferences, audio conferences and live streaming, remote support and remote access sessions. RHUB have over four million end users in a variety of market segments including: services, manufacturing and government. For more information, visit: http://www.collaboration-technologies.co.uk/.

 Contact:

Collaboration Technologies LTD
telephone: +44-(0)-1925-659-523
email: rhub@collaboration-technologies.co.uk

SOURCE Collaboration Technologies Ltd

Why Video Calling is the Best way to Build Trust in the Virtual Workplace

In descending order, in-person contact, video calling, audio calling and text messaging/emails are the most effective means of communication for building trust according to a research of Michigan University

When the going gets tough, talking face-to-face with your opponentis the only way to get out of it in most situations. This shows the power and importance of in-person contacts in building trust among people. Now, there is scientific evidence that back up the validity of the expression “we’d better talk in private”: according to a research of the University of Michigan (http://www.business2community.com/communications/video-conferencing-formation-workplace-trust-01778381#Kt51pdUzWH4cJZL3.97) that purposely targets virtual workplaces,  face-to-face meetings are the most effective way to build trust among people and virtual meetings the next.

This is not surprising at all, as video conferences simply recreate the experience of a face-to-face meeting across distance. The strong development of this technology in the last years plays a great role, as today video conferencing ensures their users high quality video sessions that are able to perfectly replicate the experience of a meeting in the reality. To give an example, we mention the suite of video conferencing servers TurboMeeting of R-HUB (http://www.collaboration-technologies.co.uk/) that allows its users even to cooperate in real time with very low frame delay (some few seconds) and get an enhanced experience of telepresence. Even the smallest non-verbal message is preserved through the usage of these light and compact devices that can be comfortably placed on a shelf of your bookcase as little as they are and that are sold at a price that does not go over a thousand of dollars.

A strong point of video conferencing is that all the initiatives and actions that are recommended by experts to build trust (like recognizing excellences, for example, or task delegation) can be easily included in any working relation that is managed through video conferencing. In other words, video conferencing allows managers to transpose and utilize the same tricks and techniques they learnt in traditional workplaces in an utter natural way, without the need of more or less long periods of retraining to get used to a new technology.

The fact that video conferencing is a technology that assures managers a smooth transition from the traditional workplaces to the new digital workplaces is certainly one of its key-factor of success. According to Credence Research, the growth of video conferencing in workplaces is explosive, with an expected rate of increase per year of + 20% in the next few years: in other word, it is a real technological revolution.

In conclusion, video conferencing is a very effective way to build trust thanks to its capability to perfectly render the experience of a real in-person contact and the possibility to transpose all the recommended actions to build trust into the virtual workplaces. However, it works if we use video conferencing tools that are able to ensure superb HD quality and seamless image streaming like TurboMeeting.

How and Why Video-Conferencing is Reshaping Sales

Technology changes have always heavily impacted society and people’s daily life, and video-conferencing does not make exception. Let’s try to figure out how sales could become in a near future when the usage of video-conferencing would be massive.

Video-conferencing is one of the most promising technologies of today, as it is clearly proved by statistics. The global market for video-conferencing is projected to reach about 3 billion $ by 2020, with a growth rate of about 7.5% per year. Among video-conferencing users, companies are going to increase their share of usage massively, mainly for business meetings. According to a survey (source: https://www.pgi.com/blog/2014/07/7-statistics-video-conferencing/ ), 74% of B2C and 92% of B2B marketers already use this technology in their marketing efforts today, and this trend is largely on the increase. Therefore, a question that comes up spontaneously is how video-conferencing is going to reshape sales in the future.

1. Direct sales are going to die out
Video-conferences have made direct sales obsolete. Through video-conferencing, salesmen can have the same benefits of real-life meetings without the burdens and expenses. This is particularly true for overseas sales. Who would spend a fortune to meet a far potential customer, when the same result can be easily reached by a free Skype call?

2. Customers will prefer to avoid any direct human interaction
Today’s buyers are able to make decisions without the help of a representative, as they can find all the information they need themselves. According to a research published on the Harvard Business Review (https://hbr.org/2012/07/the-end-of-solution-sales ), 60 % of buying decisions occurred before speaking to a sales man. It seems that nowadays the task of representatives is different from giving information to their customers.

On the other hand, video-conferencing makes presentations easy and inexpensive. A video-conferencing server of R-HUB`s suite TurboMeeting (http://www.collaboration-technologies.co.uk/), for example, allows a salesman to host a virtual presentation for up to 3000 participants at zero cost per any additional guest. The equivalent real-life solution would cost much more than £16,000, not to mention the annoyance of the organization of such a big event.

3. Sales pace will increase
Online tools and technology make the selling process easier and faster. As a consequence, sales pace gets quicker and salespersons more productive. The evidence is the huge amount of sales that happen every minute through the web.

4. Sales costs will decrease
In the future, sales managers won’t leave the premises of their office buildings, as video-conferencing gives them all the necessary resources to build and keep commercial relations. This will impact massively on costs: a reliable estimation speaks of a reduction between 50%-90% of sales costs accompanied by an increase in productivity.

5. Virtual meeting rooms will be branded
This is a consequence of the relevance of visual aspects in any sale-process. Salesmen will want to personalize their virtual meeting rooms by showing their companies’ brands and logos. They could even try to create a kind of personalized virtual environment, for example by using the colors of their companies in the background.


In conclusion, video-conferencing is going to replace the traditional face-to-face sales. The benefits of video-conferences are mainly related to increases in productivity and cost reductions, without forgetting decreased levels of stress for salesmen.

Why Video Conferencing is Improving Productivity and Reducing Costs in today’s Organizations.

Recent developments in technology give to your video conferences the same sense of connection and collaboration of real life meetings. In addition, video conferencing allows staffs to share data in a way that is not possible in live meetings which have become even more expensive as a consequence of the increase in travel costs.

Video Conferencing is going viral not only in the cutting- edge technology companies of Silicon Valley, but also in more conservative and slower-to-change organizations like Accenture that plans to add 22 video conferencing rooms to the existing 13

(source:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/technology/22meet.html).

So, what is there behind this change? The answer is quite simple. Video Conferencing allow managers to cut down on costs by increasing productivity.

In facts, moving digital bits become more and more affordable than moving people’s bodies as travel costs increase. According to Executive Travel (source: http://executivetravel.com/new-business-travel-study-says-average-per-diem-is-now-319day/) , sending a worker on a flight costs now over 1000 $, and the average daily costs for car rentals, hotels, meals etc. rose up to an astonishing 319$ per day in 2016. In comparison, the price of a R-HUB`s (http://www.collaboration-technologies.co.uk/buy.htm) video conferencing server ranges from 995$ to slightly over 2000$. It means that an organization opting for this technology will be paid back in only four/five saved travel days of one of its executives!

On the other side, the costs to dispatch bits to IP addresses have been plunging down and the ones of web conferencing tools as well. In other words, video conferencing is cheaper and cheaper.

The traditional objection that virtual meetings are necessarily poorer than live meetings is now beaten by the technological development of the last year. Video presence and high definition give a video conference the same sense of connection and collaboration of real meetings. So, it is possible to build the sense of comradery and appurtenance to the organization also through video conferences.

In addition, during a virtual conference it is possible to share data in an easy and immediate way through some specific tools like file sharing. Decisions can be speeded up a lot, workgroups become easy to organize and manage, and communication to the organization as a whole is finally possible.

The process of hiring and training staff is streamlined. Decisions become quicker, so that your organization is more reactive and abler to quickly adapt to the actual situation of market, with subsequent better results.

In conclusion, video conferencing has become a leading technology in today’s organizations because it is able to increase productivity while reducing decision times and organizational costs. Recent technological developments have improved video conferencing so much that the objections on the poor quality of virtual meetings have fallen. Last but not least, going virtual is more and more inexpensive because the high competition existing among video conferencing service providers reduces prices.

More connected and more efficient: The transformation value of Video Conferencing for Public Services

This model story from UK demonstrated the transformational value of video conferencing for public services. Through a modernized video service, it has been possible to transform the UK Criminal Justice System by allowing the creation of strategic partnerships across Justice and the delivery of a brand-new service.

With over 400,000 users, 1000 operational processes and 100 IT systems,  the UK criminal justice System was afflicted by excessive complexity, high costs, slowness and  chronic lack of efficiency. Budget optimization considerations led the Office for Criminal Justice Reform, the body in charge of supporting criminal justice agencies in providing an improved service to the public, to conduct a survey in order to formulate a proposal to the government on the possible measures to take to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

The results of the survey were quite surprising. At root of the problem there was a lack of connection and coordination among the several offices and agencies that were involved in the delivery of the criminal service. The state of disconnection and lack of standardization of the existing video service network made the situation even worse.

The solution was the adoption and implementation of a single – and updated – video conferencing system.  This automatically led to a strong increase in connection and thus communication among the several actors involved in criminal justice. The final outcome was the formation of strategic partnerships across the Criminal justice system that made it possible to deliver a less expensive and more efficient service to the public.

Criminal Justice is just one of the public sectors that can largely profit from video conferencing. Healthcare, crisis management, national and local security, chambers of commerce, education: these are just some few areas where video conferencing has been applied with remarkable success in the last few years.

Despite the huge diversity of the services we mentioned above, the reason of the success of video conferencing is always the same, interconnection. Faster and cheaper communication among public officials leads immediately to an increase in efficiency and a decrease of costs. This is nothing surprising, if we reflect on the nature of labor-intense industry of public bodies. Therefore, the quality of human interactions and human communication is the real key-factor to monitor in the public sector.

Another point to consider is that today video conferencing has become safe, secure, easy-to-implement, and inexpensive. A server of R-HUB`s suite TurboMeeting http://www.collaboration-technologies.co.uk/ for example, costs less than 2000$ and allows conferences up to 3000 participants. Maintenance and upgrading are managed remotely, so that a devoted IT team is not necessary any longer.

In conclusion, video conferencing will play a key-role in redesigning and remodeling public services next years, owing to its capability to decrease costs while increasing communication and coordination and, consequently, efficiency.

What Makes R-HUB Remote Support Servers Secure?

As technology continues to evolve and improve, remote access and control technologies now provide the ability to significantly improve productivity and efficiency. Even so, the potentially destructive impact of remote access and control technologies must also be recognized.

How Hackers Gain Access
In a Data Breach Investigations Report, the Verizon Business Risk Team named “remote access and control” the most common attack pathway used by hackers. The team concluded that, “in over 40 percent of the breaches investigated during this study, an attacker gained unauthorized access to the victim via one of the many types of remote access and control software.”

Why R-HUB Is Secure
Given the hacker climate in which we live today, you might wonder “What makes R-HUB secure?”

That is certainly a legitimate question, considering the potential risk. First, it is important to know that R-HUB recognizes both the risk and the importance of protection and has taken a number of measures to ensure the security of the data transferred during support sessions. Below are a few of those measures that outline the major areas that support R-HUB being a secure, remote access and control technology:

• Architecture: Encrypting data is a good start, but the reality is that it is simply not enough. A remote access and control system must provide support organizations with control over sensitive data as well as visibility into remote support activity. R-HUB’s appliance-based architecture works to unify support activity and collects all the data surrounding support in a central repository.
• Authentication: One layer of authentication is not sufficient. Support reps should pass through multiple authentication layers or directory authentication prior to being given access to or control of a remote system. R-HUB provides administrators with complete control over the way in which individuals, teams, and customers are authenticated without sacrificing or slowing down support.
• Access: Access should be tiered as well as permission-based at each level. R-HUB ensures this by focusing on each end of the support session and offering granular user management to administrators and reassuring controls to customers.
• Reporting: The ability to review support activity is vital to security. R-HUB offers robust logging and recording capabilities to capture exhaustive details regarding support sessions. Administrators are provided with critical visibility into support activity.

Inadequate remote working policies can result in serious potential problems, including placing a business or organization at risk for a data breach. Data protection is now a massive concern for businesses in all sectors and industries. As the number of people working remotely continues to increase, the need to ensure that employees are able to work securely without compromising sensitive data has become of paramount importance. Ensuring the correct procedures and tools are in place can help to reduce the risks associated with inadequate remote access and control technologies, while still providing all of the benefits.

Secure your remote support sessions using our on premise R-HUB remote support servers. To obtain more information about R-HUB remote support products, contact us on 1-866-758-0984 or email us at sales@collaboration-technologies.co.uk

What are the differences between Telepresence and Ordinary Video Conferences?

Telepresence has become a trendy word. But how does it differ from ordinary video conferences? The immersive experience that only telepresence can ensure is the key to learn to use the two terms correctly. What is telepresence about? Isn’t it anything else than a new word that stands for video conference? No, the answer is wrong. Telepresence cannot be considered as a mere synonym of video conference, as the difference between the two media is real and substantial. In order to have an idea of what telepresence looks like, simply have a quick look at the web site of R-hub (http://www.collaboration-technologies.co.uk/) a provider of solutions for video and audio conferencing, particularly at the page where there is the introduction to their products for HD Video conferencing  (http://www.collaboration-technologies.co.uk/video-conferencing.html).  The photo in foreground will give you immediately the idea of what telepresence is. What makes the difference with an ordinary conference is: You feel as the remote user was actually sitting right in front of you, even though he or she is in another continent. It is necessary to utilize a great amount of technology to reach this goal: a special conference room with big HD screens is usually arranged for the specific purpose; the image of the remote person is reproduced in several monitors (R-HUB TurboMeeting supports up to 8 monitors) set around the observer; last point is video quality, as flat images or – even worse -black and white images will break the magic and disrupt your conference. According to some people, the term telepresence includes also telerobotics, or robotic telepresence. This is a technology to control a robot via wireless networks and perform remote operations. What does it have to do with the first acceptation of the term? In my opinion, nothing; but this is it. But there are some people that use the term in this way. Video streaming quality. It must be seamless and in high definition. Therefore, teleconference requires to be supported by reliable and well-built systems, like on-premise server based solutions. Web app could show issues and should be avoided. In conclusion, telepresence assures users the experience of immersion which is not possible to get during an ordinary video conference via Skype on your iPhone. It needs many more resources, from a dedicated room with HD giant monitors to reliable web conferencing solutions. Being it expensive, it is limited to some specific uses, as lessons for virtual learners, surgical operations, and the meetings of the board of administration of a company. If you are interested in telepresence and web conferencing, please visit R-HUB web site (http://www.collaboration-technologies.co.uk/), where you are going to find additional resources and information about this interesting topic.