10th August 2010: Executive Interview: Attila Turi, CEO, Streamnet Kft, Budapest, Hungary explains how his company has led and developed extensive use of videoconferencing in Hungary over the last 10 years

6 September 2010. Polycom will host its partner conference for partners in BEER region (Baltics-Eastern-Europe-Russia) next week in Budapest, Hungary. It seemed appropriate to interview the CEO, Attila Turi, to understand how widely videoconferencing is used in this vibrant country of 10 million people.

*  *  *
Editor: When was StreamNet founded and how fast has it grown?

Attila: We started the business 10 years ago. We started with some major projects in Hungary and used these to create awareness of the advantages of videoconferencing. We also supply our equipment and services to neighbouring countries – and recently opened offices in Slovakia and Bulgaria. We have grown steadily and now have 33 employees in the three countries where we have offices.

Editor: Whose kit do you use and what is your status with these partners?

Attila: We have sold and integrated Polycom equipment from the start and helped them dominate the Hungarian market. We have just become a Polycom Platinum partner. We also sell and integrate LifeSize equipment and we also work  with Vidyo. Besides videoconferencing, we also provide professional AV integration including our self-designed and manufactured stands for displays (called SlimStyle), expert lighting design, furniture and hidden cabling solutions and our own, reliable push- button system to switch the camera to the person speaking.

Editor: Is there a good broadband telecom infrastructure in Hungary today?

Attila: There is now a good broadband fibre optic telecom infrastructure in Hungary and we have an Internet connection for the office of 100 Mbs. Most of our clients use IP and  get good videoconferencing connectivity within Hungary over the public internet. Deutsche Telekom owns Magyar Telekom and is pushing the use of video in all its forms. Web sites like YouTube and Facebook have created a mucher greater awareness of video over the Internet in Hungary and English has become the second language for business.

Editor: What type of companies and organisations use videoconferencing today?

Attila: One of our major large projects was the Hungarian army. They use video on a  weekly basis. They have a complete Polycom deployment with MCUs, room and desktop systems. Another large user is the state-owned company (National Information Infrastructure Development Institute) providing services for the academic/research and higher education communities. They have been using Polycom SD video and now 30 of the higher education sites have switched to Polycom HDX8000-1080p HD videoconferencing and have installed a Polycom RMX 4000 MCU to link all of them in one conference. Another Government project is the tax office which has 30,000 employees. Their offices country-wide are equipped with 25 rooms systems and 35 desktop systems. The president of the Tax Office ensures that they are used extensively to reduce travel and speed workflow.

In the private sector, the Hungarian oil company MOL is our large user. So too are the offices of a large international accounting firm. Budapest Bank, GE, Teva and Michelin are also customers. The small and medium business enterprises are starting to use HD videoconferencing thanks to our introduction of the less-expensive LifeSize endpoints. We also have regional Lifesize end-user deployments.

Editor: How many organizations use High Definition videoconferencing in Hungary?

Attila: Most of these users now use HD Videoconferencing. I would estimate that 90% of the endpoints we install in 2009 and 2010 are HD videoconferencing endpoints. However, so far the uptake of Telepresence has been small and confined to a few Cisco systems. If you ask me how far the market has been penetrated in Hungary, I would guess 3 to 4 per cent of potential users ... that is less than many countries in Western Europe.

Editor: Do you offer managed conferencing services?

Attila: Yes, we offer a managed service and help desk 24/7 to our customers, but they must rely on their own telecom infrastructure. We offered a bridging service with our own MCU from the start and we now offer to manage remotely the MCUs installed on customer premises and their connected endpoints. Most of the demand for managed services has been for connections within Eastern Europe so far but we use other providers of managed services like eyenetwork so that we can offer to connect our customers to any location worldwide.

Editor: Are you optimistic about the future?

Attila: Yes, we are. We see demand growing strongly because business managers want to be creative, use their time efficiently and avoid travel. We offer a demonstration of videoconferencing every Thursday at breakfast to create awareness. We expect more competition but feel we can prosper because we add a lot of value to the solutions we offer as well as exceptional service both pre-sales and after-sales.

Editor: Attila, thank you for these valuable insights.