View Tech Expands Out of State : Camarillo: The firm has signed a five-year pact with PictureTel Corp. to market and service its products.
View Tech Inc., a Camarillo company that markets, installs and provides technical support for video conferencing systems, has joined with a leading manufacturer of those systems to open sales and service offices in Atlanta, Dallas, and Denver by mid-September.
The five-year agreement with PictureTel Corp. in Massachusetts calls for View Tech to market and service PictureTel products in Georgia, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Colorado, Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas. Prior to the agreement, View Tech served only customers in Southern California.
“It will be a classic manufacturer-seller relationship,†said Robert Hatfield, chairman and chief executive of View Tech. “This will enhance our ability tenfold. It’s an enormous opportunity.â€
Hatfield said View Tech’s agreement with PictureTel puts his company in a good position to take advantage of the increasing popularity of video conferencing systems nationwide. Video conferencing systems use large-screen video telephones to permit face-to-face communication between people in different geographic locations.
Hatfield said sales of video conferencing systems and related services is expected to exceed $7 billion industrywide by 1999, up from $2 billion in 1995.
“Video systems are compounding at a rate of 47% annually,†he said. “It’s just a technology that’s catching on. First it was used to reduce the cost of travel, and now, as with all technology, people are finding more and more uses for it.â€
View Tech’s clients include Amgen Inc., Southern California Edison, USC, Cal State San Bernardino, and several public school districts, law firms and hospital groups.
View Tech reported a profit of $458,887 on revenues of $6,963,487 for its fiscal year 1995, which ended June 30, in contrast to net income of $35,428 on revenue of $4,098,422 for the previous fiscal year.
