 lives in a competitive global environment. In this very competitive global economy, every competitor struggles to capture market share. Markets fragment and shift and niches repeatedly emerge for firms that act within increasingly short windows of opportunity. We are all resources or commodities in today's environment. Our productivity is vital to the survival of the enterprise for which we work. Furthermore, because there is SO much to know and SO An Introduction to Video Communications much to do, we are forced to depend upon information technology for that which few of us can readily access from our brains. No matter how vast our foci become, the challenges intensify more quickly. Teamwork and collaboration, whether on a personal level or an enterprise level, have become mandatory. Video communications enhance collaborative activities. However, since not every work environment is the same, each has adapted to its special needs. That is why another form of collaboration, that which leads to interoperability standards, has been key to the survival and prosperity of video communication. In December 1990, an international telecommunications standards organization, part of the United Nations, voted to accept a video communication interoperability standard. This standard allowed codecs from such manufacturers as CLI, PictureTel, VTEL and others to negotiate technically compatible sessions over communications channels of various bandwidths. The standards-making process did not end in 1990, it began. Today audiovisual standards exist for every application. They share many common attributes. All are designed for digital networks, and all share the goal of a reduction of information to be transmitted. While the 1990 standard's target was group-system video, those ratified in 1996 were more inclusive; they clearly reflected that PC-based personal conferencing would be the next frontier. PCs were an inevitable destination for video communication. In 1989, only VTEL was shipping a PC-based product and, at five feet tall a