Installation Review: VAR Lands $150,000 Video Communications Project

By Pedro Pereira, Business Solutions magazine.

Communications solutions providers at times have to finish a job left undone by others, and that's what happened when Xtelesis Corp. won a contract to link multiple sites for videoconferencing. What seemed impossible for another, Xtelesis accomplished in 90 days.

The customer, a large engineering contractor, had trouble getting an expensive video communications system to connect between sites. After installing a state-of-the-art LifeSize solution, Xtelesis had users seeing each other remotely through high-quality HD video.

Xtelesis had to win over the customer, which at first seemed unwilling to switch to a new provider. Xtelesis account executive Bill Russ, who picked out the customer from a list of leads of potential clients with multiple sites and more than 200 users, got little encouragement during the first phone call.

Russ highlighted the company's credentials to persuade the engineering contractor it could benefit from the LifeSize solution. The contractor was in no mood to spend more money on video communications.

An Xtelesis team led by Sam Standridge, the project implementation manager, deployed a server with the LifeSize Control video management software, running two LifeSize Team220 videoconferencing endpoint solutions.