Altia Systems Award Write Up

2016 North American Video Conferencing Camera

New Product Innovation Award

2016

BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH

© Frost & Sullivan 2016 2 “We Accelerate Growth”

Contents

Background and Company Performance ........................................................................ 3

Industry Challenges .............................................................................................. 3

New Product Attributes and Customer Impact .......................................................... 4

Conclusion........................................................................................................... 6

Significance of New Product Innovation ......................................................................... 7

Understanding New Product Innovation ......................................................................... 7

Key Benchmarking Criteria .................................................................................... 8

Best Practice Award Analysis for Altia Systems ............................................................... 8

Decision Support Scorecard ................................................................................... 8

New Product Attributes ......................................................................................... 9

Customer Impact ................................................................................................. 9

Decision Support Matrix ...................................................................................... 10

The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best Practices Awards ..................... 11

Research Methodology ........................................................................................ 11

Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching, Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices ................................................................................................................. 12

About Frost & Sullivan .............................................................................................. 13



Background and Company Performance

Industry Challenges

The conferencing market is experiencing high growth and accelerated demand driven by a

focus on simplification, lower-prices, greater reliability and quality, and an infusion of cloud

services. According to recent Frost & Sullivan research, the global market for business

visual (web and video) collaboration stands at $5.8 billion in 2015 - and is forecast to

grow to $9.5 billion by 2020.

As more organizations and users adopt collaboration services capable of supporting high

quality video, they are seeking to enhance and optimize those investments by deploying

more robust peripherals, such as cameras. This demand is encouraging more and more

peripherals vendors to enter the market, which is contributing to declining prices and

commoditization that are impacting revenues. Several vendors are sacrificing quality and

feature functionality in order to remain price competitive. Other developers are focused on

designs that aim to deliver more value without significant price increases.

There are upwards of 20 million huddle rooms and 50 million collaboration spaces

worldwide that are yet unequipped with the necessary equipment to support multimedia

conferencing. As a result, the range and diversity of endpoints targeting this opportunity is

proliferating. The influx of options is making it difficult for vendors to differentiate as well

as causing customer confusion.

A number of established and new market participants continue to introduce video

conferencing endpoints and peripheral equipment. They often strive to capitalize on

growth and drive pervasive video, rather than truly innovate in ways that solve specific

customer pain points. As such their solutions are too often positioned as one-size fits all

across a wide range of physical meeting spaces, meeting types, and meeting participants.

They are often over-priced, devoid of necessary features, complex to use or ill-fit for the

intended application. Although great advancements have been made to address these

concerns, vendor strategies often default to the lowest common denominator, which

degrades performance and the user experience. This, coupled with negative user

perceptions of legacy systems, continue as barriers in customer purchase decisions as well

as user adoption and utilization.

Overcoming these challenges requires vendors to address unmet customer needs with an

innovative design approach that incorporates user feedback and the latest technology. A

company that introduces leading-edge products built from the ground-up rather than

retrofit existing solutions can better address specific environments and use cases, and is

thus most likely to deliver higher quality user experiences. Such a company establishes a

reputation of thought leadership, maintains a tight focus on the voice of the customer,

and solves challenges such as cost concerns, quality, reliability, usability, and more. As an

innovation leader, a company is well positioned to stand out in a crowded competitive

landscape to earn continuous opportunities for success.



New Product Attributes and Customer Impact

Frost & Sullivan recognizes Altia Systems’ PanaCast 2 for New Product Innovation in the

Video Conferencing Cameras Market based on the following criteria: the ability to address

customer requirements; positioning for unique, unmet needs that is not easily replicated

by competitors; innovative design that enhances the user experience; exceptional value

for the price when compared to alternatives in the market; helping customers to optimize

the value of their visual collaboration solutions; and delivering performance that builds

customer loyalty.

Match to Needs

Customers that invest in professional-grade video collaboration solutions want to deploy

high quality peripherals to optimize their experience. PanaCast 2 allows them to do just

that. PanaCast 2 enables the rapid deployment of low-cost Huddle rooms to make video

collaboration accessible to everyone, working with popular on-premises or cloud-based

video conferencing services.

The camera’s Panoramic-4K 180 degree wide field of view enhances the user experience,

allowing them to see what they need to see without obstruction. For example, most USB

cameras feature a narrower field of view, which prevents remote participants from seeing

all of the meeting participants at the same time. The shortcoming precludes all

participants from feeling involved in the collaborative session. For example, when an

attendee that is off-camera comments, remote participants lose the context of who is

speaking and what their body language conveys.

There are, however alternative cameras with active speaker tracking capabilities. These

tend to be prohibitively expensive and restricted to use with proprietary systems. Such

restrictions limit the ability to scale deployments across the small and large meeting

spaces that organizations are seeking to outfit. PanaCast 2, therefore, is an excellent

option for organizations to enhance meeting experiences at scale across varied meeting

environments.

Positioning

PanaCast 2 offers flexible deployment options that allow customers to standardize their

equipment in a variety of meeting environments. It is a plug-and-play USB 2.0/3.0

connected device for Windows and Mac, with no downloads or drivers required, thereby

offering the ease of use that shared collaboration spaces and average users need. It can

be wall mounted, ceiling mounted (with minor firmware adjustment), conveniently set

atop a desktop or table, or installed at optimal height (for viewing over the top of laptop

monitors) on a conference table or desk using Altia Systems’ elegant PanaCast table

stand. Furthermore, PanaCast 2 is compact, making it easy to carry from space to space

on a campus or on the road.



Out of the box and with no IT intervention required, PanaCast 2 works with Skype for

Business/Lync, Skype, WebEx, Citrix GoToMeeting, Google Hangouts, Zoom Conferencing,

and other popular collaboration platforms.

Altia Systems additionally offers the PanaCast Experience Service. The experience

provides every meeting participant the ability to personalize and control their individual

view, delivering capabilities such as 4.1 megapixel video, zoom, panoramic view and more

from any PanaCast 2 camera in the meeting.

Design

The product features an innovative design, enhancing both visual appeal and ease of use.

PanaCast 2’s small footprint requires little real estate for deployment. In its compact form

factor, Altia Systems has packed 3 miniaturized cameras and the PanaCast Processor

which simultaneously processes three video streams for real time dynamic stitching and

rendering to provide a 180 degree wide, 54 degree tall field of view. The heavy lifting is

performed by nine processors which can process ~300M pixels, and deliver a 32 to 9

aspect ratio (width to height imaging).

Price/Performance Value

At a list price of $995, PanaCast 2 is a tremendous value compared to alternative HD

cameras on the market.

Support for 4K video is a rarity for cameras designed for business video conferencing. It is

a technology more commonly found today in consumer camcorders and digital single-lens

reflex cameras (DSLR) and expensive professional production quality motion picture video

cameras.

Compared to competing contemporary USB, Cat5 (Ethernet) or HDMI connected cameras

designed for business-grade video conferencing, PanaCast 2’s features easily outclass less

expensive models and is as much as half the cost of cameras with competitive

components and functionality support.

Clearly Altia Systems recognizes that customers should not need to compromise

functionality or quality for a fair price.

Customer Purchase Experience

PanaCast 2 allows companies to take advantage of the latest capabilities available with

advanced visual collaboration systems and services today, including features such as:

dynamic, superfast 5 millisecond real time stitching and rendering of three HD video

streams for true and uninterrupted 180 degree field of view; electronic digital zoom; 5

user-defined cropping presets and host control; up to 4.1 megapixel output and more.



With these advanced features customers purchasing PanaCast 2 are obtaining a highly

competitive product. Due to PanaCast 2’s support for emerging 4K video, buyers are also

getting a future-proof asset. 4K video technology is taking off in consumer markets and

has obvious merits for business use cases that require detailed images, such healthcare,

engineering, creative design, and more.

When comparing products purely from a general feature perspective (pan, tilt and zoom,

HD resolution, presets, beam forming mics, stereo audio, etc.) PanaCast 2 checks all the

same boxes as the more expensive alternatives. Businesses are recognizing the value of

PanaCast, which is lower priced or competitively priced, and will provide the inherent

value of Panoramic-4K video in the future without having to replace their camera

equipment.

Customer Ownership Experience

PanaCast 2 works with standards-based video conferencing infrastructure and services

from leading providers. As a result, customers do not need to make big capital

investments or rip and replace anything. With no downloads or drivers required PanaCast

2 buyers can easily add value to their current investments in products and services from

Blue Jeans, BroadSoft, C2G, Fuze, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting, Lifesize, Skype,

Lync/Skype for Business, Vidyo, Zoom, and others.

Since its general availability in Sept 2015, Altia Systems has sold PanaCast 2 to more than

260 companies in 26 countries. Reference customers include demanding and IT-savvy

organizations such as GoDaddy, University of Western Sydney, Carnegie Mellon

University, Leica Geosystems, Intel and others. Vetting and adoption by these

organizations validates PanaCast 2’s appeal for organizations with and without strong in-

house IT resources and for meeting spaces of all types.

Conclusion

In the growing video conferencing market, one-size does not fit all. Innovation and quality

separate success from failure. Altia Systems’ focus on product innovation is unmatched in

the market. With its strong overall performance, Altia Systems has earned Frost &

Sullivan’s 2016 New Product Innovation Award in the Video Conferencing Camera Market.



Significance of New Product Innovation Ultimately, growth in any organization depends upon continually introducing new products

to the market, and successfully commercializing those products. For these dual goals to

occur, a company must be best-in-class in three key areas: understanding demand,

nurturing the brand, and differentiating from the competition.

Understanding New Product Innovation

Innovation is about finding a productive outlet for creativity—for consistently translating

ideas into high quality products that have a profound impact on the customer.



Key Benchmarking Criteria

For the New Product Innovation Award, Frost & Sullivan analysts independently evaluated

two key factors— New Product Attributes and Customer Impact—according to the criteria

identified below.

New Product Attributes

Criterion 1: Match to Needs

Criterion 2: Reliability

Criterion 3: Quality

Criterion 4: Positioning

Criterion 5: Design

Customer Impact

Criterion 1: Price/Performance Value

Criterion 2: Customer Purchase Experience

Criterion 3: Customer Ownership Experience

Criterion 4: Customer Service Experience

Criterion 5: Brand Equity

Best Practice Award Analysis for Altia Systems

Decision Support Scorecard

To support its evaluation of best practices across multiple business performance

categories, Frost & Sullivan employs a customized Decision Support Scorecard. This tool

allows our research and consulting teams to objectively analyze performance, according to

the key benchmarking criteria listed in the previous section, and to assign ratings on that

basis. The tool follows a 10-point scale that allows for nuances in performance evaluation;

ratings guidelines are illustrated below.

RATINGS GUIDELINES

The Decision Support Scorecard is organized by New Product Attributes and Customer

Impact (i.e., the overarching categories for all 10 benchmarking criteria; the definitions

for each criteria are provided beneath the scorecard). The research team confirms the

veracity of this weighted scorecard through sensitivity analysis, which confirms that small

changes to the ratings for a specific criterion do not lead to a significant change in the

overall relative rankings of the companies.



The results of this analysis are shown below. To remain unbiased and to protect the

interests of all organizations reviewed, we have chosen to refer to the other key players

as Competitor 2 and Competitor 3.

DECISION SUPPORT SCORECARD FOR NEW PRODUCT INNOVATION AWARD

Measurement of 1–10 (1 = poor; 10 = excellent)

New Product Innovation

New Product

Attributes

Customer

Impact Average Rating

Altia Systems 10 9.7 9.8

Competitor 2 9 8.5 8.7

Competitor 3 8 7.8 7.9


Criterion 1: Match to Needs

Requirement: Customer needs directly influence and inspire the product’s design and

positioning

Criterion 2: Reliability

Requirement: The product consistently meets or exceeds customer expectations for

consistent performance during its entire life cycle

Criterion 3: Quality

Requirement: Product offers best-in-class quality, with a full complement of features and

functionality

Criterion 4: Positioning

Requirement: The product serves a unique, unmet need that competitors cannot easily

replicate

Criterion 5: Design

Requirement: The product features an innovative design, enhancing both visual appeal

and ease of use

Customer Impact

Criterion 1: Price/Performance Value

Requirement: Products or services offer the best value for the price, compared to similar

offerings in the market

Criterion 2: Customer Purchase Experience

Requirement: Customers feel like they are buying the most optimal solution that

addresses both their unique needs and their unique constraints

Criterion 3: Customer Ownership Experience

Requirement: Customers are proud to own the company’s product or service, and have a

positive experience throughout the life of the product or service



Criterion 4: Customer Service Experience

Requirement: Customer service is accessible, fast, stress-free, and of high quality

Criterion 5: Brand Equity

Requirement: Customers have a positive view of the brand and exhibit high brand loyalty

Decision Support Matrix

Once all companies have been evaluated according to the Decision Support Scorecard,

analysts can then position the candidates on the matrix shown below, enabling them to

visualize which companies are truly breakthrough and which ones are not yet operating at

best-in-class levels.

DECISION SUPPORT MATRIX FOR NEW PRODUCT INNOVATION AWARD

High

Low

Low High

Cu

sto

mer I

mp

act


Altia

Systems

Competitor 2

Competitor 3



The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best

Practices Awards

Research Methodology

Frost & Sullivan’s 360-degree research

methodology represents the analytical

rigor of our research process. It offers a

360-degree-view of industry challenges,

trends, and issues by integrating all 7 of

Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies.

Too often, companies make important

growth decisions based on a narrow

understanding of their environment,

leading to errors of both omission and

commission. Successful growth strategies

are founded on a thorough understanding

of market, technical, economic, financial,

customer, best practices, and demographic

analyses. The integration of these research

disciplines into the 360-degree research

methodology provides an evaluation

platform for benchmarking industry players and for identifying those performing at best-

in-class levels.

360-DEGREE RESEARCH: SEEING ORDER IN

THE CHAOS



Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching,

Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices

Frost & Sullivan Awards follow a 10-step process to evaluate award candidates and assess

their fit with select best practice criteria. The reputation and integrity of the Awards are

based on close adherence to this process.

STEP OBJECTIVE KEY ACTIVITIES OUTPUT

1 Monitor, target, and screen

Identify award recipient candidates from around the globe

Conduct in-depth industry research

Identify emerging sectors Scan multiple geographies

Pipeline of candidates who potentially meet all best-practice criteria

2 Perform 360-degree research

Perform comprehensive, 360-degree research on all candidates in the pipeline

Interview thought leaders and industry practitioners

Assess candidates’ fit with best-practice criteria

Rank all candidates

Matrix positioning all candidates’ performance relative to one another

3

Invite thought leadership in best practices

Perform in-depth examination of all candidates

Confirm best-practice criteria Examine eligibility of all

candidates Identify any information gaps

Detailed profiles of all ranked candidates

4

Initiate research director review

Conduct an unbiased evaluation of all candidate profiles

Brainstorm ranking options Invite multiple perspectives

on candidates’ performance Update candidate profiles

Final prioritization of all eligible candidates and companion best-practice positioning paper

5

Assemble panel of industry experts

Present findings to an expert panel of industry thought leaders

Share findings Strengthen cases for

candidate eligibility Prioritize candidates

Refined list of prioritized award candidates

6

Conduct global industry review

Build consensus on award candidates’ eligibility

Hold global team meeting to review all candidates

Pressure-test fit with criteria Confirm inclusion of all

eligible candidates

Final list of eligible award candidates, representing success stories worldwide

7 Perform quality check

Develop official award consideration materials

Perform final performance benchmarking activities

Write nominations Perform quality review

High-quality, accurate, and creative presentation of nominees’ successes

8

Reconnect with panel of industry experts

Finalize the selection of the best-practice award recipient

Review analysis with panel Build consensus Select winner

Decision on which company performs best against all best-practice criteria

9 Communicate recognition

Inform award recipient of award recognition

Present award to the CEO Inspire the organization for

continued success Celebrate the recipient’s

performance

Announcement of award and plan for how recipient can use the award to enhance the brand

10 Take strategic action

Once licensed, company may share award news with stakeholders and customers

Coordinate media outreach Design a marketing plan Assess award’s role in future

strategic planning

Widespread awareness of recipient’s award status among investors, media personnel, and employees



About Frost & Sullivan

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Altia Systems Award Write Up

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