Office products update.

• Author: Marbaugh, David
• Position: Office Design & Products

Read this fast, before the equipment becomes outdated.

Wait a minute. Before you plug in that new computer, copier, phone or fax, consider this possibility: it's already outdated, outmoded--or just plain out. To keep up with the ever-evolving technology of tomorrow, you had better be willing to let go of today's.

Remember those old telephones that only made phone calls? Sure, they had a cute little ring and you could talk with the person on the other end, but that was it. AT&T now offers the VideoPhone 2500, the world's first full-color, motion videophone allowing callers to see each other face-to-face.

The idea for video communications is not entirely new; AT&T first proposed the concept of the Picturephone at the 1964 World's Fair, and videoconferencing (using digital networks) has been around for years. What is new is the price and accessibility. The VideoPhone 2500 uses existing telephone lines to send and receive video calls for the same price as voice calls. Installation of the VideoPhone is no different from that of a conventional telephone; you simply plug it in and dial.

AT&T predicts video phones will be as popular as cordless and cellular phones within 10 years. "A whole generation of young people are demanding video technology, and I believe that by the year 2001, visual communications will become as important to consumers as wireless communications," says Kenneth Bertaccini, president of AT&T Consumer Products.

The AT&T VideoPhone was developed at the Indianapolis-based AT&T Bell Laboratories. Though some of the components for the VideoPhone 2500 were designed elsewhere, the design, specifications, software and plastic all were developed in Indianapolis. The real challenge was integration of all the technology into a cohesive unit that would function with standard telephone lines.

Brian Tuite, design team leader for the project, likens the challenge to squeezing a sewer full of information through a garden hose.

The VideoPhone is the first in a series of video products and services AT&T intends to introduce over the next several months. The product will be available by mid-summer at AT&T Phone Centers and major retailers for $1,499.

As if the VideoPhone 2500 doesn't make that old string-can contraption on your desk look sad enough, AT&T also has introduced its new Merlin PFC Telephone, the first multiline business phone that handles voice and fax calls simultaneously. Small enough to fit on a desk corner, the telephone...