The News: Qualcomm has announced its new Qualcomm Video Collaboration Platform (VCP), a tiered set of three products intended to let communications hardware vendors more easily and rapidly release room systems with rich AI-based features. The announcement from Qualcomm can be found here.
Qualcomm Gives Communications Hardware Vendors a Powerful Foundation for AI-Based Experiences
Analyst Take: One of the major dynamics in the communications marketplace today is the growing interplay between hardware and platform-based software. As the platforms have searched for differentiation in their meeting experiences, they have incorporated more and more innovations traditionally managed in the hardware space.
Audio and video quality, framing, multi-camera management, and other functions used to be handled in the hardware domain. However, in the last few years, Microsoft, Zoom, and other key players have applied their large and growing AI muscle to these problems and incorporated those capabilities into their platforms, essentially reducing the space for innovation by hardware providers and increasingly commoditizing their offerings.
An uneasy equilibrium has been found around the concept of cloud versus edge computing. AI-based features (like noise cancelation) in the cloud demand a large amount of compute power and can inject an unacceptable level of latency in real-time communications. Hardware vendors have leaned in with solutions to let platforms offload some of these features in specific use cases. Now, with Qualcomm’s Collaboration Video Platform, hardware vendors can more easily reach these use cases, and they have a powerful ally in the effort to deliver innovative features beyond the platform’s native capabilities.
In 2022 Qualcomm spent an estimated $8.2 billion on research and development. That number pales in comparison to Microsoft’s estimated $25 billion spent in the same year, but it dwarfs what Poly, Logi, or even Cisco are estimated to be spending. And the hardware business is flush with smaller brands that simply do not have the revenue to support the investment required to develop and run in-house AI capabilities at a level required to outrun the platforms in the race for innovation (even as those costs come down with open-source AI models).
Of course, reliance on Qualcomm for the AI capabilities in your room systems is a double-edged sword. Building the VCP into products will afford manufacturers easy access to dedicated AI acceleration, multi-camera management, echo cancelation, noise suppression, speaker framing, group framing, and more; it also means that all competitors using the platform will have the same access and capabilities. The VCP offers APIs and the ability to customize these features, which allows vendors to innovate in terms of experience, and we can expect more features to be added to the platform as a result of Qualcomm’s commitment to R&D.
Qualcomm’s Video Collaboration Platform offers hardware vendors an easy way to add high-quality AI-based audio and video capabilities to their devices. It strengthens their position in the cloud versus edge balance. It also gives vendors a strong ally in developing the next generation of innovative, collaborative capabilities. It will be very interesting to see all the innovations that Qualcomm can help these vendors unlock in the future.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Sean is a trusted advisor to and assists industry vendors and enterprises with workplace communications and collaboration strategies, market entry and product assessment, product portfolio analysis, and sales enablement services.
Sean holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from University of Colorado, Boulder.
