Connectix Corp is claiming to be the first company to offer a software-only videoconferencing system for personal computers for less than $200. Connectix VideoPhone 1.0 – apparently nobody owns the generic term ‘videophone’ – uses QuickCam for Windows, an eyeball-shaped charge-coupled device digital camera and software that the company launched for the Apple Computer Inc Macintosh a year ago. San Mateo, California-based Connectix, which is a privately-held company, bought InVision Systems Corp of Tulsa, Oklahoma back in August (CI No 2,737), and it was this purchase that gave it the Windows videoconferencing software necessary to launch VideoPhone for Windows 1.0. It was previously known mainly for its RAM Doubler and Speed Doubler Windows and Macintosh utilities. Connectix VideoPhone requires no additional hardware compression technology or a video capture board, just a sound board for full duplex sound, according to the company. If another video input device is used in place of the QuickCam camera, then a video capture board will be necessary. Connectix VideoPhone 1.0 has video conferencing software from InVision at its core with the compression technology courtesy of National Semiconductor Corp’s NSVideo. A version of VideoPhone for the Apple Macintosh, also using the QuickCam camera, was also released earlier this year, based on Apple’s QuickTime technology. A software-only version of VideoPhone, without the QuickCam camera, is also available, as the VideoPhone software supports any Video for Windows or QuickTime-compatible video input device. Without the camera, VideoPhone costs $100 with an estimated street price of less than $60. VideoPhone for Windows works over local area networks, using Novell Inc NetWare or TCP/IP-based networks for personal computers. The Macintosh version works over AppleTalk or TCP/IP networks. Wide area network use is possible over an ISDN line. Connectix’s sales director Steve Cross said the company would win the race to be the first to ship an affordable videoconferencing system that worked usefully over the public switched telephone network. The company showed a videoconferencing system at Comdex last month that will offer three frames per second over the public switched telephone network, but this will rise to 10 and more frames per second by the time the product ships, probably in the first quarter of 1996, said the company. Connectix’s Cross said the company was diversifying in the same manner as fellow utilities company Quarterdeck Corp – a company with a brilliant strategy, according to Cross – and he believes that desktop video in all its guises has as much potential as desktop publishing. VideoPhone 1.0 for Windows costs $250, but the company envisages a street price of around $150, and is available now.
