Soon, the boundary between audioconferences and videoconferences will begin to blur. Users will be able to see schematic figures representing the participants, and also view 3D representations of objects. Over the last decade, videoconferencing has evolved from an expensive boardroom luxury to one that has the potential to become ubiquitous. As with audioconferencing, you can also view screens of data, spreadsheets or slides while the conference is going on. Videoconferences tend to involve smaller numbers of participants than audioconferences.
More people means the screen needs to be divided into smaller and smaller windows.
The emergence of switches based on PCs has dramatically cut the cost of both kinds of switches. Some products have been specifically designed for small businesses and offer even more functionality. They may combine voice telephony with local and wide area networking, unified messaging and Internet access. The drawback is that PCs offer limited growth. The more you stuff into a PC, the smaller the number of people you can serve from it.