Dmitry Seriy, deputy director and co-founder of Vinteo, told in interview for Expert South about way of development of the company, current results and future plans.
Dmitry Seriy, Vinteo: "We adhere to the strategy of catch up development"
— With what dynamics is the company developing? Where are the main points of growth? What are the main drivers of growth?
— Our company develops professional class of Telepresence video conferencing solutions. Over the past two years the company's revenue indicators have more than doubled. So in 2019 Vinteo's revenue from the creation of video conferencing solutions increased by 99.2 percent compared to 2018 and amounted to 156.620 million rubles (in 2018 it was 78.634 million). This increase in indicators is associated with the implementation of a number of large projects, mainly public sector organizations, within the framework of the national import substitution program.
— What was the original plan of the business? How can you characterize the stage that the company is going through now?
— Под брендом Vinteo компания официально начала работать с 2013 года - до этого она носила название "АльтерСвязь" и была создана в Краснодаре 18 лет назад. На тот момент наша небольшая команда технических экспертов решила попробовать себя в развитии технологии VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol или IP-телефония), посчитав её перспективной. Мы создали IP АТС и сервер аудиоконференцсвязи - это были конкурентоспособные продукты, на которых оттачивались наши компетенции. В 2010 году на ИТ-рынке начался заметный рост инсталляций систем видеоконференцсвязи у российских заказчиков, и мы решили, что готовы создать новый интересный и амбициозный проект уже в сегменте видеокоммуникаций - разработать отечественный сервер видеоконференцсвязи. Спустя три года был создан качественный коммерческий продукт - программный сервер ВКС на базе Linux, построенный на классической архитектуре и работающий по стандартным для отрасли профессиональных решений протоколам. Технологически у нас получился единственный на российском рынке продукт класса telepresence, построенный по классической схеме микширования видеопотоков, способный конкурировать с иностранными продуктами этого класса. Мы вывели его в отдельный бренд Vinteo. Через год после выхода решения на рынок, в 2014 году, наш сервер совпал с тенденциями отечественного рынка, полностью соответствуя принятой государством в ответ на санкции программе импортозамещения.
— How did the company’s competitive advantages develop? What are they?
— To begin with, Vinteo is the only monobrand video conferencing solution in Russia built on classical architecture. This means that all products under the brand of the company support the technological standards of traditional VCS systems, with which major manufacturers of professional-class solutions work, such as Cisco, Polycom, LifeSize, Avaya. That is, our customers have the opportunity to introduce any Vinteo products into the already existing networks built on the equipment of almost any vendors. This is an important factor, considering that since the advent of CCS technology in Russia in early 2000, the State structure and companies mainly used foreign equipment, often from different manufacturers, to build CCS networks.
— How long is the company planned to grow? - Does the company have a strategy? What are the key tasks before you?
— Over the past few years, Vinteo has pursued a strategy of catching-up development. In our products we sell and improve the functionality already available to the leaders of the CCS market. This is not surprising, since the size of the competing companies, which are the world’s giants (Cisco, Polycom, etc.), is not comparable to ours. Also, the "coronacrysis" played a big role in adjusting the company’s development plans: the market showed a great demand not only for the solution of the classical CCS problem, but also for products like Zoom. Realization of such a project is a big challenge and one of the new tasks for our company, which can take several years to solve.
As a result of the introduction of the self-isolation regime, the distribution of VCS subscribers has changed. For example, before the pandemic, in 2018-2019, 60-65 per cent of Vinteo subscribers were customers with standard hardware codecs (typically the leading foreign CCS manufacturers)25-30 per cent for customers with software clients or mobile devices. The self-isolation regime has made significant adjustments in the preferences of our customers. The vast majority of subscribers participating in CCS sessions switched to software clients for personal computers and mobile solutions. The number of simultaneous participants in conferences has increased dramatically. No more than 10-15 per cent of the subscribers from the large conference rooms and conference rooms remain with standard codecs. If previously the development of a mobile client was not a priority for CCS systems, we now see its increased importance for customers, and this gives new vectors for the development of the company’s products.
— What are the main trends in the IT market for you today and why?
— In terms of general trends, the focus has been on digitization - education, medicine, various industry companies; transition to remote jobs in a permanent mode. The topic of import substitution in this way has again become topical - at the state level there are questions about support of domestic IT-market players. The third area that is under active discussion is the large-scale introduction of artificial intelligence in various industries, an attempt to put it into a legislative framework, to make it controllable, and artificial intelligence systems safe for users