Video conferencing

Many of us still envision Videoconferencng as a videocall.
May be involving three or more people.

But let's dream of how it should really be.
Imagine the following scenario:

One colleague dials a second by detecting their on-hook status in the "buddy" or presence list of the convergence-center PC client, and right-clicks to connect on a basic VoIP phone call.
They decide to add a third participant who is also available, and are able to conference her in on the fly by dragging her name over the "conference" button. The three decide they need to review a particular document, and they are able to call it up from wherever it's located and edit it together, each passing and seizing mouse and keyboard control in turn.
If all are equipped with desktop video cameras, they can decide to enable video as well.
The document is updated, the colleagues agree to the actions required upon completion of the conference and the call concludes with a click.

All this is not a dream any more becuse with VoIP and using the data line you can:

- working in a virtual workspace

- sharing applications

- sharing desktop capabilities

- online chat (eventhough I hate this)

- sharing a whiteboard

- audio and video communication

- calendaring functions

- file and data storage and sharing

- using an effective document viewer (for the most important text and graphic documents)

It shouldn't be called video conferecing only, because it can do much more.
You still cannot offer a coffee using the Internet pipe, but with VoIP you can do more than one telephone call at a time and you could order a coffee from a coffee shop near each of your collegues and have it delivered in REAL TIME...

With VoIP you can ALWAYS find a solution...