As budgets tighten, the New Zealand Government is seeking greater efficiencies in the operation of its Ministries and Agencies. The Department of Internal Affairs is also encouraging agencies to collaborate more effectively with other Government organisations, and to share infrastructure where possible.

To assist in effective, time-critical collaboration, Asnet Technologies launched VideoNet™ in October 2010 – a fully outsourced Managed Video Conferencing service. With VideoNet™, organisations select from a range of Video Conferencing systems for deployment across their geographic locations. Asnet Technologies then provides a fully managed service, incorporating Internet and ISDN gateways, global address books, remote and fault management, online video training and helpdesk, call reporting, and recording and streaming services – all for a single monthly fee.

Partnering with Polycom®, a world-leader in video conferencing technology, ensures unparalled quality and customer satisfaction. As New Zealand’s only Polycom Platinum Partner and Polycom Infrastructure Certified Service Partner, Asnet Technologies remains the industry leader in video conferencing solutions and innovation, providing a full range of managed services to its clients, which are supported by their highly trained and certified video infrastructure technical engineers.

Asnet Technologies is now launching VideoNet™ Unite. This service offers all subscribing VideoNet™ Government organisations the opportunity to interconnect for no additional charge. All video conferences are hosted in secure Virtual Meeting Rooms that exist in Asnet Technologies’ telehousing facility.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) both of which have multiple international and domestic offices, were the first to adopt VideoNet™ Unite.

Today, Asnet Technologies is by far New Zealand’s largest multi-agency managed video service provider, managing over 700 endpoints, from desktop and meeting rooms to fully integrated boardroom solutions. Many of these are Government agencies which, through VideoNet™ Unite, opens up a great opportunity for increased collaboration and reduced costs for communication and efficient video and content collaboration between these agencies, connecting everyone from Government bodies to Education.

Polycom has awarded Asnet Technologies the title of the only locally certified Platinum Partner for the third year in a row.

Gary Denman, managing director for Polycom New Zealand, said that Asnet Technologies are an important partner for Polycom.

“New Zealand is a market where we are seeing strong demand for unified communications solutions, and partners like Asnet are perfectly geared to bring new and innovative video and telepresence solutions to New Zealand customers. We are proud to have Asnet as a Platinum Partner for the third year running,” said Denman.

Eric Greenop, Asnet’s managing director, says the award is proof of the strength of the two companies’ relationship as well as “a testament to the expertise and professionalism of all 22 people in the Asnet Technologies team throughout New Zealand.” 

Original article: Reseller News

The fully mobile system, which operates over standard Wi-Fi, combines high definition video and audio to share real-time, high definition images between remote locations, enabling medical professionals to provide assessments of patients, regardless of time or distance. 

Eric Greenop, Managing Director of Asnet Technologies says the advanced telepresence capabilities of the cart allow medical professionals to provide real time consultations, education and mentoring, and to even broadcast medical procedures with complete high definition clarity. 

“The versatility of the Practitioner Cart™ is extensive, as existing medical and non-medical peripheral devices can connect to it, which allows for comprehensive engagement including sharing of data and content between the health care professional and their patient.” 

Close-up medical camera images of a patient’s throat, ears or skin, for example, can be instantly shared with an offsite professional who can then consult with the patient, in a similar way to a face-to-face meeting.

“This device allows an off-site medical practitioner to literally be present in the room for a patient consultation. This means that diagnostic decisions can be made quickly and accurately which, in extreme cases, could mean the difference between life and death for a patient.” 

With Wi-fi connectivity and its own in-built power supply, the Practitioner Cart is truly mobile, and easily maneuverable. It has an adjustable frame that is compact enough to allow it to be transported easily through hospital wards, operating units and other medical facilities.

Greenop says the first Practitioner Cart™ in New Zealand has already been deployed to a South Island hospital, and is proving popular with staff and patients by delivering excellent results. 

“The hospital staff are very enthusiastic at the scope of application that this new technology will bring, and we are very pleased to be able to deliver this leading edge solution, through our partners, into the New Zealand healthcare industry for the first time. ” says Mr. Greenop. 

“The Practitioner Cart™ is an impressive, practical piece of technology and we look forward to seeing it increasingly become a key part of the New Zealand health care industry.” 

Asnet Technologies is looking for “as many resellers as possible” for its newly launched VideoNet, a High Definition cloud-based video conference service that the company describes as video-as-a-service.

According to Asnet Technologies’ managing director Eric Greenop, the new service is “essentially an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) model for any service provider, should they want to use it.”

“It’s video-as-a-service that they can resell across the networks,” he adds.

The new service can be rebranded by the reseller or service provider as their own and Greenop says that “the white label is the principle of the whole thing”.

“We can represent it as their service, even on a help desk level,” he says.

The new service is offered in a variety of packages to suit different sizes of businesses. the company offers VideoNet in six versions: Boardroom, Executive, Desktop, Meeting, Mobile and Connect. The whole product is a bundled service offered for a monthly fee and has the ability to scale up or down.

“We see the need for it, for people who provide the pipes to resell,” says Greenop. He says the company is already offering the product to government ministries and corporate environments.

“We normally sell direct, so this is new for us. Our expertise is in managed services. We believe IaaS is what we do best. We can give resellers the equivalent of a rate card and they can resell it,” explains Greenop. “We know the model works because we do it ourselves.”

He says he already has “several resellers interested” in VideoNet and is looking to grow that partner base even further. “For resellers, there are opportunities around value added services on top of what they are already delivering to customers.”

Asnet Technologies was a Polycom distributor before becoming a reseller in early 2010. The new video-as-a-service solution uses Polycom’s High Definition video conferencing products.

Original article: Vera Alves, Reseller News

The Gallagher Group has shaved hundreds of thousands of dollars from its travel bill after installing high definition video conferencing technology.
 
Before Asnet Technologies installed the 1080p camera and pair of 63-inch (160cm) video screens in the Hamilton-headquartered multinational’s boardroom a year ago, executives would regularly fly to the 130 countries it operates in to meet staff.

Now half a dozen Hamilton executives take part in live discussions saving about $60,000 a meeting in travel costs alone, not to mention having staff in the office to work on other things rather than being mid-air for half a week.

Gallagher’s specialist business units now include security, animal management, fuel systems and contract manufacturing, and the group has big presences in Canada, the United States, Britain, South Africa and Australia.

Gallagher Group information services executive Julian Phillips said the technology would be used half a dozen times in a typical day; my first appointment to trial it was moved back a week because it was needed for business.

It can be set up, using a touch sensitive control, to show everyone in the boardroom, or automatically focus on whoever is speaking. It can also be configured to show graphs and presentations in both boardrooms.

The high definition camera, with a close zoom, is ideal for sharing innovations — when it zoomed in on my shirt, it showed bobbles caused by washing.

The cost of such a system, Asnet Technologies managing director Eric Greenop said over the big screen, “ranged from a few thousand dollars up to megabucks”.

“It depends whether it’s a brand-new build, or if we are working in an existing environment,” he said.

The system transmits in high definition, which is often jerky in free video-conferencing software, but the software through which Asnet Technologies solution works analyses the picture and updates only the part that is moving. This means a high definition picture can be sent through an internet connection of 1 megabit a second.

Mr Greenop said Microsoft’s Skype software was not a competitor to his company’s system, instead acting as a seed that helped people grow used to the idea of video conferencing.
“They try it, get used to it, get familiar with sitting in front of a camera.”
The Asnet Technologies solution works with identical technology in other boardrooms as well as specially written applications for laptops, the iPad and Android devices. Telephone calls can also be factored into the conversation.

Mr Philips described the system as a “no-brainer” because it had paid for itself within a few months.

Original article: Chris Gardner, © Fairfax NZ News

However, gadgets that you would usually describe as futuristic are actually beginning to make an appearance in our real lives.

First up today we had the Vgo. VGo, is a “telepresence robot” which allows a user to interact with people in remote locations.

Standing about four feet tall, the VGo unit displays the user’s real face and voice through the robot’s ‘face’.  The user sees the location through a camera and drives VGo around a workspace, controlled via any PC or laptop over the internet. Being in two places at once is definitely becoming more and more of a virtual reality.

Features:

• WiFi connectivity, battery power, and advanced robotics for driving deliver complete freedom of movement
• See, hear, talk, and move in any location – be in two places at once
• Mobility enhances your effectiveness at a distance by freeing you from the bounds of a conference room or office
• 100% remote controlled – be fully-empowered even though you are not there at the remote site
• High quality audio / video and easy remote driving via any PC or laptop with an internet connection makes it feel like you’re really there
• Advanced security controls and privacy policies mimic real life
• Self-contained wireless audio-video appliance
• Remote user controlled mobility, volume, mute, camera lights, and hi-resolution snapshots
• WiFi and Battery status indicators
• Auto docking for battery recharging
• Strict privacy and connectivity controls
• Spoken visitor arrival announcements and text messaging
• Sensors to assist driving

Original article by John Buckley, TheGadgetGuy.co.nz

Just when we thought we’d seen it all, they connected their Managing Director to their Wellington and Auckland video conference boardrooms… from the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

“Apparently, holidaying with my family on a cruise liner halfway between New Zealand and Tonga is no longer an excuse to miss an important meeting,” joked Eric Greenop, Managing Director of Asnet Technologies.

Utilising the new Polycom® RealPresence™ Mobile application for tablets, and Asnet Technologies’ own managed VideoNet Mobile service, Mr Greenop connected into a live commercial High Definition video and audio conference through his iPad2, over WiFi, via satellite, into the boardroom units in their New Zealand offices.

“It was great to see the technology operated well when pushed to its limits. Of course, you would normally be connecting while on land via WiFi or 3G, and inside a building. But the stiff ocean breeze up on deck certainly created some atmosphere.”

VideoNet™ Mobile has been developed to make the most of new technology and software developments. It augments the simple tablet-to-tablet software, taking it to the next level as an extension of your own network, by providing cloud-based bridging to connect you with multiple boardrooms, meeting rooms or desktop video conferencing systems at the same time. As a fully managed service, VideoNet™ Mobile is also covered by Asnet Technologies’ Help Desk, manned by highly qualified, New Zealand-based technical engineers.

One of the great uses of this software is connecting staff out in the field with colleagues and managers back at base, for reporting and sharing real-time information on situations and developments; people and content, (including video, photographs and spreadsheets).

“This is the perfect tool for mobile company sales representatives needing to share information quickly, to take advantage of opportunities that could otherwise be missed.”

Environment-based organisations are also keen to make the most of this new technology, where staff can report back or join conferences from anywhere in the country.

And as for Mr Greenop… he’s going to have to think of a new way to escape the office.

Asnet Technologies has brought in a $10,000 video conferencing robot named ‘VGo’ into New Zealand for the first time, to test the market.

The video conferencing solutions company, which remains wholly New Zealand owned when in April, managing director Eric Greenop acquired the company, saw the VGo at the audiovisual conference Info Comm 2011 this year, and made arrangements to bring the device here to trial it.

Asnet Technologies launched VGo at the Health Informatics New Zealand conference in Auckland in November and, while people had at first viewed the robot as a gimmick, queries had followed about its applications, Mr Greenop said.

“It looks like a gimmick to start with, and it wanders around the show and invites people back to the stand. All of a sudden you see three or four of these important people following a robot back to your stand and they talk about it, they laugh and joke and they think it’s a huge gimmick to give you an opportunity to talk about the rest of the stuff on the stand. They go away, and about 20 minutes later they come back and say “Can it do this?”

In the health industry where face-to-face interaction is important, the VGo could be used to save a consultant travel while still performing bedside talks with patients or families, he said. “With this device a consultant in Auckland, whose expertise is needed in hospital in Invercargill, could sign into the unit through his computer and take a ‘walk’ around an actual ward, seeing patients and providing advice.”

He said the company had had enquiries since the show about the device, with people asking about its applications in warehousing, such as for security on different floors of a building. Employers could also use VGo to check up on office work when away.

Mr Greenop said the system was already used in a wide variety of applications overseas, including one high school that used a VGo to allow an ill student to attend classes from home.

The VGo will be available for purchase from Asnet Technologies by the end of January, due to WiFi compliance rules.

Although video conferencing technology has been around for some time, Mr Greenop said, it was a growing market, with drivers including the rollout of fibre in New Zealand, the decrease in the requirement for bandwidth due to technological improvements and the decrease in price for such solutions.

Asnet Technologies offers video conferencing solutions including the Polycom Practitioner Cart, a mobile healthcare station that allows peripheral devices, medical and non-medical, to be connected allowing real time, high-definition video, image and audio sharing. One cart is currently being installed in a South Island hospital. The company also has the Eagle Eye Director, a video conferencing camera that automatically locates speakers, and an iPad application that allows people to join a video conference call via their iPad.

Original article: Take Me To Your Leader

Published by: The National Business Review, 16 December 2011

Asnet Technologies’ Richard Bishop estimates some 400 schools – that’s about 15 percent – have some sort of standards-based VC system. And this is likely to grow, not least following the Government’s recent announcement that it will be establishing a Network for Learning.

“Rural schools kicked it off as they felt the heat more than most, losing kids and teachers, and not being able to offer the same level of education as metro schools,” said Asnet’s Richard Bishop. “But I believe we’re entering a perfect storm with improving access and decreasing set-up costs. I expect uptake to become exponential with 1,000s of schools in the next 18 to 24 months.”

Video conferencing includes everything from Skype through to virtual presence but it’s probably the High Definition (HD) version available over Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) that will become valuable in a school’s curriculum provision. But what exactly is it that’s behind the appeal of video conferencing? Well, the benefits are many, among them:

• quite simply there’s the ability to easily interact with people far away;
• face-to-face is a more ‘natural’ form of interaction. People tend to feel ‘at ease’ with each other in this conversational mode;
• non-verbal forms of communication can be seen and responded to;
• VC offers the ability to give demonstrations, share pictures, movies, physical artifacts; and
• VC also allows for the replication of many of the elements of normal, effective teaching.

Clearly there are benefits but what of the challenges? Obviously, money is one. VC equipment isn’t cheap, although the cost may not be as much as you think – and comparatively less than just a few years ago. Asnet’s trying to make it easier with its launch of LearnSmart, an all-in-one package of equipment, installation and training to get you started with VC.

As schools gain access to ultra-fast broadband through the Government roll out, virtual learning opportunities will be delivered more cost effectively and reliably, which, in turn, will provide an added incentive for schools to collaborate online.

Originally article: Is Videoconferencing Worth A Look?
Published by: Interface Magazine, Issue 36 December 2011.