COMPANY NEWS: More Than Just a Phone Call; Video Conferencing And Photocopies, Too (original) (raw)
Business|COMPANY NEWS: More Than Just a Phone Call; Video Conferencing And Photocopies, Too
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- Sept. 15, 1993
Credit...The New York Times Archives
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September 15, 1993
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Section D, Page
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For years, video conferencing has been the Ferrari of telecommunications -- rare and expensive, but fun. Now, a nationwide chain of photocopy stores wants to make video conferencing more accessible to average consumers, if the average consumer can afford, say, a Lincoln Town Car.
Kinko's, the photocopy chain based in Ventura, Calif., said yesterday that it planned to offer video conferencing service at its shops, enabling callers to see and talk to each other over special telephone lines.
The plan is to offer the service in 100 stores in major cities by April and then extend it to most of Kinko's 530 other stores. The service will be provided through Sprint, the country's third-largest long-distance carrier.
During a 90-day introductory period the price will be 20for30minutes,buttheratewilleventuallyleapashighas20 for 30 minutes, but the rate will eventually leap as high as 20for30minutes,buttheratewilleventuallyleapashighas150 an hour.
A video conference customer could call from one Kinko outlet to another, or to any of the 3,000 rooms in Sprint's nationwide video conferencing network.
The first customers are likely to be professionals and small-business executives, according to Kinko's, but the company hopes eventually to attract consumers that might want to video conference with Grandmother.
Sprint intends to buy video conferencing equipment from Picturetel in Danvers, Mass., that would enable a group of people to call another group or allow one person to use a desktop computer to exchange data like spreadsheets and circuit designs with another computer. Corporations typically spend 28,000to28,000 to 28,000to80,000 for videoconferencing equipment.
"I'm evangelical about this," said Paul J. Orfalea, 45, chairman of Kinko's, who opened his first store in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1970 while still a college student. "The cool thing is that this is the first affordable and accessible retail public network for video conferencing.
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