Saying public officials are seeking to save money during this slower economy, a Hillside, New Jersey-based provider of managed video communications says that more and more government agencies are turning toward telepresence technologies.

 

Officials at Glowpoint, Inc. say they’re getting contract renewals with several large government customers and that another public agency has signed a so-called “telepresence VNOC (video network operations center, pictured below) management deal.”

 

According to Joseph Laezza, the company’s chief operating officer, government agencies are especially sensitive to controlling costs and maximizing their budgets in this recession.

 

“Our unlimited usage model gives government agencies a way to increase their use of video communications without worrying about their communications costs rising as they use it,” Laezza said. “Glowpoint’s (News - Alert) TEN is increasingly being seen as a key value point for government clients as they look toward more effective means of leveraging their use of video to connect with other government departments and outside companies.”

 

In addition to the contract renewals, Glowpoint also says it signed an agreement with another government agency to provide its Telepresence (News - Alert) VNOC service in support of eight Telepresence rooms. Glowpoint’s fully managed Telepresence VNOC service includes: single source, around-the-clock support and management of the rooms and user community; SLA room monitoring and management; on-demand help desk support; Glowpoint’s proprietary unified conference scheduling applications; conference production and on demand in-conference support; an ddetailed usage and performance reporting.

 

As TMCnet columnist Peter Radizeski wrote recently, some IT insiders, such as

Andy Abramson (News - Alert), say that video conferencing from a client company such as SightSpeed (News - Alert) is better than Cisco’s Telepresence.

 

Yet as one commenter wrote to Abramson, TelePresence is a richer experience.

 

“Well, it should be for equipment that is in excess of $50,000 per site,” Radizeski writes. “Even this price barrier is being removed by companies like WBS Connect leasing out tele-presence rooms for business use.”

 

Also, the TMCnet columnist says, many tele-workers don’t want to shave and dress for video conferencing. There’s no IT guy at the home office to help with the video conference set-up.

 

“Messing with the Web cam and the software is a pain and when you have so much to do in 8 hours, dialing a conference bridge is easy,” Radizeski writes. “Even that isn’t fool-proof as quite a few times stuff has happened to hamper that easy tool.”

 

Meanwhile, Glowpoint officials say the new government renewals and contract collectively secure about $1 million in revenue annually.

 

“With all the volatility in the economy, we are very pleased that our customers continue to see Glowpoint as a valuable partner for their video communications,” said the company’s chief executive officer, Michael Brandofino.