Lifesize unveils cloud video conferencing services

Lifezie, a division of Logitech announced enhancements to its award-winning Lifesize Cloud video conferencing service. The new features provide greater accessibility, control and collaboration to enable every person and every conference room with easy-to-use, powerful performance in video communications technology.

These—and regularly scheduled future enhancements to Lifesize Cloud—continue to fuel global adoption of the video SaaS offering and Lifesize Icon  family to deliver a truly Connected Experience as more than 1,000 companies have subscribed to the service, logging millions of meeting minutes during the first 10 months of availability.

"From small businesses to global corporations, the demand for cloud-based video communications is exploding,” said Gagan Verma, Regional Director India & SAARC Region, Lifesize. “Consumer applications have influenced the need to be fully accessible, anywhere at any time. Lifesize Cloud delivers the industry’s most integrated video experience, making it easy to connect across offices, small or large conference rooms and mobile devices in a scalable way.”

“Video conferencing as a whole has shifted from hardware to SaaS, which has significantly increased the range of opportunities for cloud solutions,” said Andrew W. Davis, researcher, analyst, and opinion leader in the field of collaboration and conferencing for Wainhouse Research. “Lifesize is continuously updating their cloud solution to provide customers with the most relevant and useful features, ensuring that they have the best possible experience. From easy scheduling to Lync interoperability to browser-based calling, Lifesize makes it easy for any organization to adopt video conferencing into their everyday lives.”

Lifesize Cloud brings simple, easy-to-use and scalable video communications to every person and every conference room, across devices, applications, browsers and Lifesize endpoints. The new enhancements include:

• Interoperability with Microsoft Lync: Any one of the more than 100 million enterprise Lync users can join meetings hosted on Lifesize Cloud from their Lync client application with just one click.
• 40-way group calling: Host large company meetings so you can connect more people in more places with the new 40-way group call feature.
• Quick and easy scheduling in existing workflows: With the new Microsoft Outlook add-in and Google Chrome extension, users can now schedule video meetings and invite anyone directly from Google Calendar or Outlook—no need to open the Lifesize Cloud app.
• Browser-Based Calling: Whether you use Google Chrome or Internet Explorer, you can make “one-click” Lifesize Cloud video calls directly from your web browser. Lifesize customers and guest users that join meetings via browsers are greeted with a newly refreshed Call Me page featuring a clean and visually stimulating interface.
• Enhanced Control Settings: Take control over your meetings with the new lecture mode, mute all and layout option features. With lecture mode, users can assign a primary presenter to show full screen, allowing a single person to take the reins. When creating a meeting, simply select who will be the presenter. Meeting owners can also now mute all participants to optimize the meeting audio and choose between two different sets of configurable layout options.
• Account insights: Monitor which teams are leveraging video conferencing with the new active/available user dashboard. With this report, account managers can reallocate Lifesize Cloud accounts across the organization to get the most out of their investment.
• More devices: Join your video conference from the latest Android devices including Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2, Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Motorola Moto X 2013 edition and iOS devices including iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.