Qumu
QUMU]

The contemporary workplace is becoming increasingly social. In addition to chat, text, and voice, incorporating video communication into existing social business networks is crucial for staying ahead of the curve in the enterprise collaboration landscape. Video is the closest thing to being face-to-face, and one company that encourages and manages video communications at enterprise scale is Qumu.

Qumu, an innovation leader in the enterprise video space, brings a scalable and extensible video platform that can streamline the creation, management, and delivery of videos across existing enterprise collaboration and social business tools. For instance, the Qumu enterprise video platform seamlessly integrates with Skype for Business, SharePoint, Yammer, IBM Connections and WebEx, empowering users to turn previously overlooked interactions into valuable and accessible video assets. “Live, streaming or on demand, we turn video into an always-on resource, connecting thousands of stakeholders at the touch of button within a single enterprise,” says Vern Hanzlik, President and CEO of Qumu.

The Qumu platform manages video content within a company’s firewall, outside of it, or both through a hybrid option. In the first case, video content is directly delivered to in-house users over the LAN. As for external communication, the Qumu platform takes videos streaming on public broadcast and moves them into Qumu’s firewall, so they can be communicated from a licensed environment to a large number of users. At the heart of Qumu’s high-performance video platform is a smart Content Delivery Network (CDN) device called Pathfinder which allows organizations to configure and optimize video content for their mobile users, specific departments, and various endpoints.

Also adding value to the Qumu platform are desktop-based tools that come with a full spectrum of video editing capabilities. With the help of these tools, users can produce a webcam video, edit it, and finally publish it through a channel to a selected audience. At the same time, Qumu also ensures secure access to videos, channels, or administrative functions while indexing all the videos to make them easily searchable. “We have built a sophisticated delivery network so that CIOs don’t have to worry about videos clogging their network,” noted Hanzlik.

Live, streaming, and on demand, we turn video into an always-on resource, connecting thousands of stakeholders across a single enterprise

From a user experience standpoint, one of the use cases Qumu is particularly focused on is large-scale desktop and mobile live video broadcasts. The Qumu platform allows enterprises to produce live events which can accommodate up to 50,000 concurrent viewers with no loss of broadcast integrity—a feat which was unheard of just a short time ago. This technology is regularly used by the Global 2000 for executive addresses, crisis communication and company-wide training.

Qumu has also developed Unified Communication (UC) gateways for technologies from Polycom, Pexip, and Cisco. Based on the needs of its clients, the firm delivers its solution via three CDN alternatives—eCDN, software CDN, and public CDN. In one recent implementation, Qumu employed its platform to transform the communication network of a large-scale pharmaceutical company. The client had approximately 80+ channels producing 60 to 70 pieces of video content on a daily basis. Over the course of four years, the client leveraged over 50 platforms, but was unable to build an effective video repository for its business communications. Eventually, Qumu came to the scene and appointed a centralized business operations group to run its platform for the client. Today, the client communicates face-to-face with nearly 35 different use cases via Qumu’s video platform.

As a true global organization, Qumu has discovered growth opportunities in the Middle East and countries in the Asia-Pacific belt, where it is currently expanding its footprint. Speaking of technology enhancements, Hanzlik notes, “Our next step is to harness virtual reality and 360 video, to produce and deliver enterprise video in even more diverse ways and in exciting new content environments.”