INTERCALL MARKS 15 YEARS IN CONFERENCING INDUSTRY

Industry Leader Has Shown Remarkable Growth

 

CHICAGO (September 25, 2006)  – Conferencing has made a dramatic impact on the way we work. In a recent national survey, Wainhouse Research found that more than 60 percent of all meetings today are done virtually. In 15 short years, the trend has changed the way businesses interact and has opened the door to positive workplace movements such as telecommuting and the weekly update from the CEO.
 

This growth has turned many entrepreneurial companies into global players. One such firm is InterCall, now the global leader in conferencing, and celebrating 15 years in business this fall.
 

“Today, conferencing is used for more than just meetings. Businesses understand the importance of creating better connections with colleagues, partners and customers and look to InterCall to help them achieve success,” said Scott Eztler, president of InterCall. “Our growth and success is mainly attributable to our outstanding employees and our commitment to build and support leading conferencing technologies.”
 

The story of the growth in conferencing can be told through the history of InterCall. In the 1990s, InterCall began to deliver a large-scale conferencing platform to businesses when landline phone technologies were limited at best. By the year 2000, the Internet began to drive greater interest in conferencing as video streaming and other collaborative tools became more commonplace within office software suites. Following the tragic events of 9/11, businesses turned to conferencing as a replacement for travel. But even as business travel settled back to pre-2001 levels, the conferencing industry did something that surprised even the experts – it continued to grow. 
 

Conferencing is now a $3.7 billion industry, up more than 32 percent from 2000 industry revenue of $2.8 billion. Today, many executives spend the majority of their time on conference calls, and Web conferencing enables hundreds of people from all over the world to contribute to a presentation. The move to conferencing as an everyday business tool is so significant that executives surveyed by Wainhouse said that it was the second most vital tool on the job next to the computer and ahead of the cellular phone.
 

“For the past 15 years the conferencing industry has evolved, becoming a tool employees around the globe rely on to get more done in real-time,” said Etzler. “This industry has changed the way people work. InterCall has been there helping people achieve their business goals by providing easy to use and reliable conferencing services, backed by always-on customer support.”
 

Experts see continued growth in the industry over the next 10 years. New technologies are already allowing conferencing to be integrated into instant messenger software programs and mobile devices.  As the speed of innovation continues to accelerate, one can only begin to imagine the way that conferencing will continue to change the way businesses work and interact in the near future.
 

 “The future for this business is going to see that people can stay connected and productive from wherever they work around the world,” Etzler continued. “As our economy expands globally, companies will be able to meet the challenge of staying connected by leveraging these new conferencing tools.”

 

Sidebar:

Conferencing Growth Through the Years

 

1980                First audio conference call

1982                Introduction of video conferencing

1991                Companies such as InterCall founded to develop conferencing products and services

1996                Introduction of Web Conferencing

1999                Introduction of reservationless services, the ability to complete a call without the use

of an operator

2000                InterCall debuts first Web conferencing platform

2002                Conferencing industry records ten billion minutes of usage

2002                First year InterCall records one billion minutes of usage

2003                InterCall acquired by West Corporation

2003                InterCall acquires ConferenceCall.com

2004                Microsoft Launches new LiveMeeting platform for conferencing

2004                InterCall acquires ECI Conferencing

2005                InterCall purchases Sprint conferencing

2005                Wainhouse Research names InterCall largest conferencing service provider in North America