The Evolution of Video Conferencing to Unified Collaboration
Not that long ago, video conferencing was a bit of a luxury. If you wanted to speak face-to-face with someone in another office (or country), you needed to book a dedicated room with a bulky, expensive system. There’s no doubt about it; it was impressive at the time, and it’s where the evolution of collaborative meetings started to take shape. At the time, Picturetel, Polycom and Tandberg offered these serious pieces of equipment, which were often fixed in place (often due to the weight of the CRT Displays they ran on, if nothing else!), with remote controls that resembled spaceship command consoles. And if the stars didn't align just right, you'd often be stuck troubleshooting firewall traversal issues and, in some cases, even ISDN line outages before your meeting even began!
Fast forward to today, and things look very different.
We’ve moved from those hardware-heavy, single-purpose systems to something far more flexible, user-friendly, and powerful and the term we all know today: Unified Collaboration.
At its core, video conferencing used to be simply video calls. You'd also get audio and maybe a bit of rather grainy, low-resolution screen sharing if you were lucky. It was great for connecting people’s faces, but it didn't play particularly nicely with the rest of your workflow.
Then came the shift to software-first, cloud-based platforms. Think Skype for Business in the beginning and evolving into Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. Suddenly, you didn’t need a dedicated room system to make a video call — you just needed a laptop or a phone. Meetings became mobile, accessible, and integrated into daily life. These platforms didn’t just replicate the boardroom experience — they reimagined collaboration for the modern world.
And that’s where the real transformation happened.
Today, we talk about Unified Communication and Collaboration (UC&C)—the new way of saying everything works together. Video calls, chat, file sharing, whiteboarding, calendar integrations, task management—all tied into a single, seamless experience. It's no longer about having a meeting. UC&C is the baseline for every meeting to be collaborative, meaningful, and engaging wherever you are.
Meeting rooms have caught up too. Gone are the days of proprietary boxes in the corner of the room. Instead, we’ve got smart, scalable, platform-agnostic spaces powered by brands like Logitech, Crestron, Lenovo, Neat, Poly (now under HP), Yealink, Barco and others. They’re equipped with AI-intelligent cameras, adaptive audio systems, highly intuitive yet off-the-shelf touch control panels, and wireless presentation tools — all designed to make the collaboration experience as seamless as possible.
Robert Lingley, Director of Candeo Vision comments: ‘Hybrid working was the rocket fuel for this evolution. Organisations suddenly needed solutions that worked in the office, at home, and everywhere in between. So we also saw a boom in “Bring Your Own Meeting” (BYOM) setups, often in smaller rooms where users could walk into a room, connect their laptop, and instantly join a meeting on the platform of their choice via WIFI whilst utilising the room camera & audio systems. At Candeo Vision, we continue to take an agnostic approach to UC deployments and work with our clients to set up the right solution for their business. We guide all our clients from initial concept, vendor selection, purchasing, deployment and on-going support’
In short:
We’ve gone from “Can everyone hear me?” to “Let’s collaborate.”
And that shift isn’t just about technology — it’s about people, productivity, and the way we work now.
Contact Candeo Vision to help shape your Unified Collaboration spaces.