SITUATION

The vision: Novus International, a leading developer of animal health and nutrition programs, wanted an AV and conferencing system that would be as cutting-edge and "green" as its new LEED-certified, high-tech world headquarters. The building's showpiece is the boardroom, which is used for local meetings and serves as the hub for communicating with employees in more than 25 Novus offices and with customers worldwide. Since Novus relies so heavily on technology to maintain global communications, the AV design — especially the teleconferencing system — needed to be flexible and powerful enough to expand with the company and keep up with Novus' evolving network.

SOLUTION

Novus called on Innovative Technology Group (ITG) in late 2007 to create and install a state-of-theart AV and conferencing system in the boardroom. At that time, the est option for teleconferencing was an analog telephone line and analog Biamp teleconferencing interface to act as the transport backbone. Meanwhile, the Novus IT department was managing increased network eeds, as well as a rapidly changing network structure and opted to install a Cisco VoIP phone system on a SIP-based network throughout their new facility. At that point, in the middle of the boardroom AV installation, ITG advised Novus that Biamp was developing a VoIP-enabled teleconferencing system — the VoIP-2 card for AudiaFLEX — which would be the best long-term solution.

CONCLUSIONS

Using a VoIP teleconferencing system in the boardroom ensures the AV and conferencing system is cutting-edge and allows for the system to interface with the IT departments' VoIP telephony installation throughout the rest of the facility. Additionally, since Novus relies on technology to communicate worldwide, the VoIP teleconferencing system allows for better clarity, offers more bandwidth, faster downloads and saves costs by eliminating the long distance fees for teleconferences. And, Novus can easily expand the boardroom AV system without the cost and hassle of installing new wiring — using fewer resources, which better fits with Novus' "green" agenda.