Vidyo's mobile videoconferencing app showcased on iPad 2

The product is in substance a port of Vidyo's existing Mac/PC client to iOS and Android, for smartphones and tablets. Earlier, the vendor extended its software development kit to allow mobile devices to join a videoconference of participants using PC-based and room-based video systems.

In general, mobile customers download the appropriate VidyoMobile app, which links automatically via a URL through the appliance-based VidyoPortal application to a company's VidyoRouter, which interconnects the participants. The router eliminates the need for conventional multi-point conferencing units. Both the portal and router boxes connect to the existing enterprise network via Ethernet. There's as well a proxy application to support the connection through a corporate firewall.

VidyoRouter is the server software that makes it possible to sustain high-definition, low latency video over existing corporate networks. The software uses what the vendor calls Adaptive Video Layering, which constantly optimizes the video quality and resolution for each individual endpoint, and the network connection for each endpoint. This approach is based on the H.264 Scaleable Video Coding standard, an extension to H.264/MPEG4 video compression standard.

VidyoMobile extends this over cellular and Wi-Fi connections to iOS and Android mobile devices. It's free to download, nevertheless as an enterprise-focused product, it requires an endpoint license of $5 per person. With the licenses for the associated Vidyo infrastructure elements, the price per user is about $100, according to the company. It is due to ship in July.

IOS supports Apple's FaceTime video chat, a one-to-one video call. However extending that to multiple parties is hard work, according to Vidyo's Song. Skype offers one-to-one video calls on mobile devices, yet not group videoconferences. Google's Gmail video chat as well is one-to-one, nevertheless it uses Vidyo's software so it could be group-enabled hereafter, Song says.