ACN Iris 3000 Videophone

[.....]

Anyone know anything about these videophones? I was given a brand new one still in the box last night. I haven't had a chance to play with it yet.

[unbeldi]

These were given away (?, IIRC) by ACN, which is multi-level marketing company that sold the phone/video service.  I don't know whether these were locked to the provider.  I think these are pretty old now.

[.....]

One of the young lads at work knew that I collected phones. He gave it to me, It's never been used, it's still in the original shipping box. I told him that I didn't want it as I don't collect that type. He left it anyway. I had a chat with Dave Hunter about it and I guess it will be going to P.E.I. More for his collection.   

[WEBellSystemChristian]

My school received brand new phones similar to these a couple years ago. The video feature is apparently too complicated for most of our teachers (most grew up with 500s and Trimlines) so now they're used like the phones they replaced, without video conferencing!

[andre_janew]

I've never known anyone who could use a videophone.  I think people skype nowadays anyway.

[WEBellSystemChristian]

I've never known anyone who could use a videophone.  I think people skype nowadays anyway.

It's mainly used for offices. It's far more professional to video-call an extension in an office than Skype that person individually.

[TelePlay]

It's mainly used for offices.

Maybe it's just me but I worked in offices for many years and can't imagine doing work on the phone being tied to one spot during a business call. Either a phone with a long cord or in hands free mode (not the best for doing business with customers) while digging into desk draws, file cabinets and book shelves while talking would keep one out of the camera sweet spot for all but the first half minute and maybe the last 10 seconds of the call.

I can see why these didn't catch on in the business world, but a bit in school settings where thoughts and words are the product, not price lists, engineering drawings, production schedules, sales reports, bills of lading, research, etc. etc, etc. But, that was last century, today it would have been a wireless transceiver which would have been a lot better to have back in the day, that would be before FAX machines when computers had nothing more than 10 MByte hard discs max, 8088 desk top computers with 8" floppy disks and maxed out at 128K CPUs running DOS, not Windows - the good old days of pencils and 3x5 paper cards to get the job done . . .   

Got caught up reminiscing for the good old BA days - before addiction to smart phones.