Computer Franchise Opportunities in Video Conferencing for VARs + MSPs

A $3 billion industry, video conferencing is one of the most promising computer franchise opportunities available today.  With only a few big players and bottomless demand, video conferencing is an ideal niche for small and medium franchises to explore.

The World is Your Oyster

Any institution that uses computers is either currently using video conferencing or will in the near future. Imagine thousands of schools, hospitals, courtrooms, businesses, and offices as a potential customer base. The most popular video conferencing services are:

• HD multipoint boardroom video conferencing

• Video arraignment

• Video remote interpreting

• Telemedicine

All of these services have been traditionally implemented through locally stored software. The recent shift to cloud-based variants of the above services further widens your market.

Let’s Talk Money

Because all computer franchise opportunities must translate into money, let’s take a look at the numbers.

The industry grew by a staggering 48% in the year 2004 alone. According to Infonetics, video conferencing was a $3 billion industry in June 2011. It is expected to grow to $5 billion by 2015.

If you go a step beyond conferencing by including other visual communications like online collaboration, multipoint meetings, video arraignment, video remote interpreting, and unified communications, you would be a part of an even bigger industry, currently valued at $10 billion and estimated to touch $15 billion in the next 3 years.

How Vidtel did it

Just 4 years old, Vidtel has grown into a video conference provider with more than 40 channels.

The innovations that created Vidtel’s success include minimization of extra hardware, subscription-based services (as opposed to contract-based services), bundling with A/V hardware, and white label pricing for all of its services.

As an increasing number of clients look beyond Cisco and Skype for video conferencing solutions, this is one of those computer franchise opportunities that is not to be missed.

Does your firm currently offer video conferencing solutions to its clients? If so, how does this platform opportunity compare to other current computer franchise opportunities? Please share your thoughts in the COMMENTS section below.

And to follow-through on the ideas introduced in this short post, be sure to download your free quick reference guide to the 13 Computer Franchises that Start Up and Support Computer Repair, IT Consulting, and Managed Service Provider Businesses.

Creative Commons Image Source: flickr And all that Malarkey