SiliconBeat

Hewlett-Packard has announced a couple of interesting developments regarding Halo, its high-end video conferencing service that uses souped-up cameras, screens and other hardware and software to make you feel like you’re in the same room with others who might actually be on the other side of the globe.

First, HP says it’s offering the capability for customers to use their Halo facilities as studios to produce high-quality Webcasts, which can be streamed live or at a later time to an audience of employees or others watching on their PCs or laptops. According to HP, it’s also possible for the audience to participate in live sessions using instant-messaging or phones.

In the second part of the announcement, HP said it’s “re-aligning” the Halo business, meaning Halo is being moved on the organizational chart from HP’s Imaging and Printing Group to its business-focused Technology Solutions Group, where it will be part of HP’s ProCurve Networking business.

There’s a back-story: Halo competes with other video-conferencing services, including the TelePresence service offered by Cisco — a sometime partner and, increasingly, a rival for the attentions of HP’s corporate technology clients.

Cisco has been expanding its own video business; CEO John Chambers has said video will be a huge part of the data that streams over public and private computer networks in the future. Meanwhile, HP has been expanding its ProCurve business, which competes with Cisco’s primary business of selling networking gear for data centers.

And Cisco, of course, has begun selling computer servers, a business in which HP has traditionally been a market leader. So the competition continues.