As new technologies such as Polycom's make it easier for more employees to take part, videoconferencing may become a regular part of work, said Forrester Research analyst Henry Dewing.

"The utilization of desktop video in the daily lives of information workers is a key tipping point for the video industry," Dewing said. "That will then mean IT will be expected to supply that, just like they're expected to supply a telephone or an email address."

Also on Monday, Polycom is announcing a software-based MCU (multipoint control unit), the Polycom RealPresence Collaboration Server 800s, which adapts video streams for different types of end systems participating in a call.

Traditional MCUs are appliances with large numbers of DSPs (digital signal processors) to convert the video. Software-based MCUs can run on standard x86 servers and be moved around in virtualized environments, Levenson said.

Moving away from expensive, dedicated MCUs should help enterprises and service providers to scale up their videoconferencing systems more efficiently, Weinstein said. "This thing is chewing on video all day long, for every participant," Weinstein said.