A deep dive into the video conferencing market, its major players, and what clients should actually care about when choosing among them.
Introduction: The Call Before the Call
Once upon a time, “video conferencing” meant a darkened room with a single camera, a codec that cost more than a car, and a support contract that paid for the vendor’s yacht. Today, it’s an essential utility—ubiquitous, mundane, and occasionally functional.
The market, however, remains divided into three tribes:
The Cloud Lords (Platforms) – Microsoft, Zoom, Google, Webex, and others who host your meetings, record your secrets, and occasionally remind you that you’re still on mute.
The Hardware Merchants (Devices) – everyone from Logitech to Yealink, who make the cameras, speakers, and widgets that try (and fail) to make you look competent.
The Infrastructure Keepers (Specialists) – Cisco and Pexip, serving those too paranoid (or too regulated) to let their calls leave their own networks.
Let’s unpack each group, then tackle the real meat: what clients should actually care about when buying into this circus.
The Cloud Lords: Platform Makers
These companies don’t just provide meetings. They increasingly run productivity, AI integrations, and workflows. If meetings are oxygen, these folks own the air filters.
Microsoft Teams
The corporate mandatory. Nobody loves it, but everybody uses it—mainly because it’s bundled with Office 365 in deals structured like a Sopranos shakedown. Its integration with Outlook and SharePoint is both its biggest strength and its greatest annoyance. The phrase “Let’s jump on a Teams call” is corporate shorthand for: prepare to suffer minor technical indignities.
Zoom
The pandemic turned Zoom into the Kleenex of conferencing. It’s simple, reliable, and people actually like it—something no one has said about enterprise software since Excel in 1985. Its challenge now is proving it’s more than just “video calls with a better UI than Teams.” Zoom is betting on AI, contact centers, and events. Investors remain skeptical.
Google Meet
Meet is the IKEA Allen key of conferencing: handy, serviceable, and impossible to throw away. It integrates beautifully into Gmail and Google Calendar, but nobody voluntarily buys it standalone. Google’s greatest strength is convenience. Its greatest weakness is Google itself—famous for killing beloved products with the enthusiasm of a toddler smashing Lego.
GoTo Meeting
Once the pioneer of “remote meetings,” GoTo Meeting now feels like the steady old sedan parked beside Zoom’s Tesla. It’s affordable, reliable, and used by SMBs who want conferencing without the baggage of Office licensing or Cisco procurement. Innovation is modest, but reliability counts.
Cisco Webex
Webex has been around longer than most of your interns. It’s rock solid, endlessly customizable, and beloved by IT departments who distrust anything shiny or new. Its feature set is vast; its UI sometimes feels like an archaeological dig. Webex is not dead—it’s just middle-aged, wearing sensible shoes, and still paying its mortgage.
The Infrastructure Keepers: The Niche of On-Premises
Before the cloud revolution spearheaded by the likes of LifeSize, Webex and Zoom the industry relied on clients investing in their own video conferencing infrastructure. Bridges allowed multiway calls, ISDN gateways enabled inter company calls, and management apps controlled the entire environment. Today much of the action, and pretty much all of the noise is taken up with Cloud providers. But some clients, specifically organizations like governments have wanted to keep their data to themselves. Additionally the level of trust between governments and the private sector has dropped to the point where many large commercial organizations are looking to bring at least a small part of their video collaboration back in house. This is where players like Cisco and Pexip come in.
Cisco
Beyond Webex, Cisco continues to sell specialized infrastructure boxes for those who still run video servers in their own data centers. If your meetings involve classified military projects or the words “regulatory compliance,” Cisco is your friend. For everyone else, the cloud is cheaper and less painful.
Pexip
Pexip specializes in interoperability and self-hosted conferencing. Its appeal? Absolute control. No data leaves your network unless you want it to. Governments, militaries, and paranoid corporates love it. Everyone else quietly wonders why they’d bother.
The Hardware Merchants: Endpoint Vendors
This is where the market really sprawls. The hardware sector is fragmented, dynamic, and full of interesting innovation.
Cisco
High-end, sleek, and expensive. Cisco room systems look like they belong in James Bond’s MI6 headquarters. For boardrooms where perception matters more than price.
Logitech
The everyman’s conferencing vendor. Logitech offers everything from $99 webcams to enterprise Rally Bars. Its dominance lies in affordability and reliability. Nobody ever got fired for buying Logitech.
HP | Poly
Poly, once Polycom, then Poly, now HP Poly—an identity crisis wrapped in a merger. Famous for legendary audio, Poly is now trying to reinvent itself under HP’s wing. History matters, but so does execution.
Owl Labs
Their Meeting Owl is part camera, part conversation piece. Quirky, innovative, and perfect for small companies that like gadgets. Less so for Fortune 500 boardrooms.
Neat
Norwegian design meets Zoom/Teams obsession. Sleek, expensive, and Instagram-worthy. Neat is the MacBook Pro of conferencing—beautiful, overpriced, and adored by design agencies.
Biamp
An audio powerhouse. Biamp’s DSPs and large-room solutions are essential for venues where echo is measured in seconds, not milliseconds. Think universities, auditoriums, and boardrooms with delusions of grandeur.
Q-SYS
A platform rather than a device, Q-SYS integrates audio, video, and control at scale. Perfect for institutions that think small video bars are beneath them.
Crestron
The grand old man of AV control. Crestron makes hardware too, but its brand is synonymous with one-touch room control. Expensive, but reassuring to corporate buyers who fear risk more than invoices.
Huddly
A nimble Norwegian startup making clever AI-powered cameras. Often embedded in other vendors’ solutions, Huddly is proof that small players can innovate faster than giants.
Lenovo
Lenovo produces Teams and Zoom kits at scale. Think reliable, enterprise-friendly, and easily rolled out in their thousands. Not flashy, but solid.
AudioCodes
Originally a voice-infrastructure company, AudioCodes has pivoted into Teams-friendly meeting devices. Deep Microsoft integration makes them credible in certain corporate circles.
Aver
Budget-friendly and widely used in education. Aver products won’t win design awards, but they deliver function at scale.
DTEN
Zoom’s pet partner. DTEN makes all-in-ones optimized for Zoom Rooms. Great for simplicity, but limited if your company wants multi-platform flexibility.
Jabra
From headsets to video bars, Jabra brings Scandinavian design and audio credibility. Popular in huddle rooms and smaller spaces where simplicity matters.
Huawei
A technically strong vendor hampered by geopolitics. In Asia, Huawei thrives. In the West, it’s treated like Voldemort—unmentionable in polite RFPs.
Yealink
The Chinese juggernaut. Yealink offers breadth, aggressive pricing, and increasingly credible quality. With strong Teams and Zoom partnerships, it’s rapidly gaining global share.
Twelve Things to Consider When Choosing a Cloud Vendor
Scale
A platform with a billion users is more resilient than one with a few hundred thousand. Scale means better redundancy, faster bug fixes, and more R&D. Small vendors may have nice features, but they can disappear overnight, leaving you explaining to the board why your collaboration strategy just evaporated.Global Availability with Regional Safeguards
It’s not enough that a service works in New York. Does it work in Frankfurt, Singapore, and Sydney? And can it guarantee that EU data stays in the EU? GDPR fines aren’t just scary—they’re career-ending.Security Features
End-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, and compliance certifications (SOC2, FedRAMP, HIPAA). Without them, you’re one leaked recording away from becoming tomorrow’s headline.Price to Start and to Scale
Vendors love cheap entry points but hide costs in enterprise licensing. Ask what happens when you move from 50 licenses to 5,000. The answer often involves tears.Software Availability Across Devices
If your vendor doesn’t run on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and ChromeOS, you’ll spend your life explaining to employees why they need a different laptop.Total Cost of Ownership
Licensing is just the beginning. Factor in support, training, compliance, bandwidth, and third-party integrations. Like iceberg lettuce, the visible part is small; the hidden costs will sink you.ESG Credentials
Shareholders care where your vendor’s data centers get their power. Coal-burning clouds are bad optics. ESG is no longer “soft”—it’s table stakes for enterprise procurement.History of Innovation
Are they leading the industry with AI features, interoperability, and integrations—or are they still bragging about their 2016 “raise hand” button?Connectivity to Other Systems
Your video calls must connect to CRM, ERP, HR, and AI platforms. Otherwise, you’ll spend hours copying notes into Salesforce.AI Capabilities
Transcription, translation, summarization, and sentiment analysis aren’t gimmicks—they’re survival tools. They turn “another wasted meeting” into usable data.Stability of the Vendor
Check their balance sheet. A flashy startup may fold before your renewal. Your CEO won’t care how pretty the interface was if the service vanishes.Exit Strategy
If you leave, can you extract recordings, transcripts, and integrations? Or will your vendor hold them hostage? Always ask before committing.
Twelve Things to Consider When Choosing a Hardware Vendor
Total Cost of Ownership vs. Purchase Price
The sticker price is meaningless. Maintenance, spares, and upgrade cycles matter more. Buy cheap, and you’ll pay double in the long run.ESG Credentials (E, S, G)
Environmental: energy efficiency and recyclability. Social: labor practices and inclusivity. Governance: honest reporting. Fail on any, and your ESG committee will veto the deal.Breadth of Solutions
A single vendor covering webcams, mid-sized rooms, and immersive spaces reduces complexity and procurement nightmares.Size of the Vendor
Large corporates prefer large vendors. Procurement departments dislike betting on startups that might collapse mid-deployment.Channel Reputation
If resellers and integrators hate a vendor, you’ll feel it too. The channel is your front line of support—choose a vendor they trust.Relationship with Microsoft
With Teams Rooms dominant, certification is non-negotiable. A non-certified device is basically an overpriced decoration.Manufacturing Location
Tariffs, geopolitics, and supply chains matter. If your vendor builds only in politically sensitive regions, prepare for headaches.History in the Market
Legacy vendors bring credibility, references, and proven support. Fly-by-night entrants offer excitement but also risk.Multi-Cloud Compatibility
Devices must support Teams, Zoom, Webex, and Meet. Users will not politely stick to your “standard.”Security Standards
Cameras and microphones are potential spies. Without enterprise security certification, you may end up on the wrong side of a data-breach investigation.Age of Product Range
If the flagship device is older than your interns, it’s outdated. Vendors who refresh their portfolios regularly stay relevant.Customer References
Real case studies matter more than glossy brochures. If a vendor can’t produce Fortune 500 logos, be suspicious.
Conclusion: Strategy, Not Specs
The video conferencing industry is not about gadgets or licenses—it’s about trust, scale, and survivability.
The smart buyer evaluates vendors with hard-nosed pragmatism: Can they integrate? Will they survive five years? Do they align with ESG mandates? Everything else—shiny devices, slick interfaces, aggressive discounts—is noise.
Because at the end of the day, video conferencing is corporate oxygen. You don’t notice it when it’s working. You only notice it when it runs out—usually halfway through the board’s quarterly earnings call.
Simon Dudley is a technology strategist, bestselling author, and former senior executive at Logitech and Polycom. He now runs Excession Events, helping companies out-think rather than out-price their competition