Launched one year ago to link sell-side and buy-side firms, the inter-enterprise video community has grown steadily and now connects thousands of users who are dispersed across multiple banks and related organizations in the financial services value chain. With two new customers joining recently, the community now includes 10 companies with locations in over 20 countries.

"The need for video is growing not only within financial services but across the supply chain to other industry participants," said Larry Tabb, Founder & CEO of The Tabb Group. "By linking the complete value chain from buy-side, to sell-side, to outsourced vendors, research organizations, software developers, law firms, executive recruiters and network providers, the industry becomes more efficient. Not from just reducing the cost of travel, but increasing communications, reducing time delays, enhancing relationships, and insuring that projects get done right the first time."

Today, financial services professionals use the video network to communicate and collaborate effectively with dispersed global teams. Executives at investment banks use the video network to connect to recruitment firms to interview job candidates. Complex derivative trades can be completed in days rather than weeks due to faster access to risk managers and independent legal advisors. Face-to-face video communication with outsourced vendors helps ensure that outsourced projects stay on track, irrespective of geographies, language and cultures.

"Avistar is optimistic that the video community will continue to grow in size and importance," said Jerry Burnett, Chairman and CEO of Avistar. "Over the coming months we expect to see more banks and related institutions join, and we plan to continually enhance our services to meet the changing needs of this community."

At the core of the video community is the Avistar Community Exchange (ACX), which exchanges information among the AvistarVOS Proxy (VOSP) servers running at each member enterprise. Running on a secure web server and using industry standard protocols, the ACX exchanges user presence directory information, routing, and system resource reservations between member enterprise VOSPs. This allows easy and quick presence-based calling between different enterprises in the community. The VOSP includes powerful capabilities that enable each participating enterprise to manage user visibility across the community.

Avistar recently located the central ACX at a secure, professionally managed, independent data center at DataPipe Managed Hosting Services. As a result, member enterprises are expected to experience a reliable, robust, secure network, with increased scalability. Avistar also delivers management services to set-up and maintain enterprise accounts, and to monitor and service the performance of the ACX.