Basex Awards Echo360 System Architecture

According to a report in Earthtimes, Echo360 has been named a "Visionary Vendor" in education technology by Basex, a leading knowledge economy research and advisory firm.

Basex praised the new architecture of Echo360 System, hailing its "centralized hub to schedule, manage and monitor lecture capture operations, as well as a first-of-its-kind dedicated hardware appliance to capture content inside the classrooms".

I agree that thin clients and dedicated capture appliances are the best option for capture, and that a centralised content management and scheduling system will increasingly provide added value to presentation recording. However this design is not reflected in current pricing. Echo360 charges only for capture, using per-station licenses, and charges nothing for the content management and scheduling.

Also, as I pointed out in my recent review of the Echo360 System v2.1, the capture stations are unable to stand on their own or provide immediate playback of confidence recordings. The appliances are tethered to the server, and the software-only installations have been dumbed-down. This is an unacceptable compromise for those interested in either mobile capture stations or a phased rollout of recording capability, followed by later deployment of the server infrastructure.

Sure, one can purchase just a single classroom license, but to actually use that capture station, you've got to deploy the whole backend suite first. So while the architecture is being praised by Basex as a "significant advancement in classroom technology", I think the design makes Echo360 an all-or-nothing proposition.