Live two way video is needed in situations like telemedicine where the doctor needs to see the patient's face or an area of their body. Also if you are interviewing a potential employee halfway around the planet you would also want to see their facial expressions during your first interview with them before perhaps flying them over for an in person. I have installed dozens of Polycom cameras and video conferencing software on laptops (the Polycom PVX client runs with Windows and most webcams). Aside from great picture and audio quality, the two features that sold me on Polycom the most was the ability to share the sites existing broadband internet connection (DSL, T1, or whatever) and the ability for the camera to do its own encryption versus needing to establish a VPN or leased line between the sites. When we investigated the Cisco video conferencing cameras they did not offer a way to call through the open internet, each call routed back to their call center versus using a public IP address and I was told the Cisco cameras did not support the AES encryption on their own like the Polycoms and Tandbergs do.