“It’s no secret the USB webcam business is suffering due to the growth of embedded webcams. Consumers particularly are not concerned with high definition videoconferencing. … Good enough quality is fine when you are talking to friends and family,” Forrester Analyst Phil Karcher said.

Karcher believes that consumers will pick up on high definition (HD) videoconferencing slower than enterprises: “While desktop videoconferencing is becoming more popular in both the consumer and business markets, business buyers have a stronger appetite for high-quality audio and video.”

Due to this “good enough quality” attitude from consumers, some major players have exited from the webcam business, like Cisco. At the same time, consumer-oriented webcam vendors are targeting enterprises, like Logitech. The vendor recently evolved it’s classic desktop webcam into a small-group camera [shown left]. By pushing the roundtable BCC950 ConferenceCam, Logitech hopes to fill a niche for businesses craving video conferencing systems at palatable prices (compare a $249.99 conference cam to a $5,000 room-based video solution).

Karcher says that Logitech isn’t the only consumeristic vendor pushing into the enterprise market. Both Google and Skype offer free and professional video conferencing products and services for organizations to experiment with.  

“ The consumerization of IT is accelerating this trend. Its also more viable with the cloud allowing small start ups to scale up their operations by experimenting in the consumer markets before introducing more hardened enterprise offerings.”

Time will tell whether this enterprise experimentation will be enough to keep USB webcam vendors afloat.

When Cisco and Tandberg agreed to their video marriage two weeks ago, the dowry was set at $3 billion. And the deal was contingent upon the approval of the owners of 90% of Tandberg’s stock.

According to Reuters (via GigaOm), Swedish brokerage SEB Enskilda has told Cisco that it represents 21 shareholders who own 24% of Tandberg’s stock, and those shareholders want more money.  “We think the price is too low,” Amund Lunde told Reuters. Lunde is CEO of life insurance firm Oslo Pensjonsforsikring, which owns 1% of Tandberg, It’s not clear what it would take to win over these holdouts, but clearly Cisco will have to dig deeper to get a controlling interest in the company.

Apparently investors have been telling the Norwegian press that something stinks about the Tandberg deal. According to the Financial Times (via Norwegian language site Dagen IT) Rasmussen Group CEO Rune Selmar said Cisco’s promise of three-year bonus agreements to “key” Tandberg employees “probably explains part of management’s positive attitude to the acquisition.”

Ouch. That sounds awfully close to an ugly accusation.

Initially it appeared that Cisco targeted Pure Digital as part of a strategy to build out its consumer technology business. That remains part of the plan; however, Cisco soon started positioning the Flip as an enterprise product as well. At June’s Cisco Partner Summit in Boston, Cisco gave out 1,500 Flip cameras to partnersat the conference and Cisco executives emphasized the importance of video to the future of collaboration.

So who is this enterprise customer? And what plans does it have for more than 4,000 Flip cameras?

Here is Tom Casey, a sales engineer with Psychtehnics, demonstrating the operational interface of Experience Manager, recorded last week at VoiceCon Orlando. Sorry for the jittery camera. I drank too much coffee.

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