A startup company is borrowing the best minds of Cisco and Tandberg to create a revolutionary videoconferecing platform capable of branching across multiple devices and platforms.

Based in Oslo with offices in London and New York, Pexip is looking to develop a software-based platform that can run on both commodity hardware and virtual instances to solve scalability problems, which have plagued videoconferencing platforms in the past.

Simen Teigre, chif executive and co-founder of the firm, told V3 that the Pexip platform will rely on a software system to scale hardware for traffic levels and distribute traffic through regional offices. In doing so, the company believes it can overcome the traffic problems that have affected large-scale videocasting and conferencing systems.

“The nature of bringing people together on video requires a lot of processing and typically you have done that on hardware,” Teigre explained. “The problem is you can’t really scale that, if you deploy video to hundreds of users you will have massive bandwidth challenges.”

To meet those challenges, Pexip is proposing a system that can dynamically scale hardware resources to meet the needs of each locale, employing branch office hardware as satellite broadcasting systems. Additionally, the system’s policy of transferring licences between systems will allow multiple offices to share a single subscription, effectively moving coverage around the globe as time zones and work hours shift.

The firm, which traces its roots back to the pre-acquisition days of Tandberg, is making healthy use of local talent in London. Teigre said that the company specifically chose the city for its branch office due to a pocket of world-class engineering talent in the telecommunications field. Dating back to the days of its Ridgeway Systems, the company has fostered a strong presence in London.

“These were some of the most capable engineers that we could find in videoconferencing software,” said Teigre. “It grew into a solid team and community of engineers that were based out there.”