Source: Miami Business Magazine, March 2000
Title: Talking Pictures
Written by: Richard Westlund

Allen Benowitz built his first company to transcribe words.
The jump to videoconferencing was only natural.

When the residents of the Bahamas need specialized medical care, they usually travel to the capital city of Nassau. To provide easier access, the country's largest private hospital is planning an innovative telemedicine program.
......"We're planning to link seven or eight videoconferencing centers around the islands," says Barry Rassin, CEO and chairman of Doctors Hospital Health System. "With a nurse and paramedic at each center, a specialist in Nassau can examine the patient, make a tentative diagnosis and prescribe treatment. So the patient doesn't have to fly to Nassau." The facilities are expected to be working by year's end.
......For help in designing the $500,000 system, Rassin turned to H. Allen Benowitz, founder of Miami-based Worldwide Videoconferencing Corp. as well as his own court-reporting firm. "I met Allen at a videoconferencing demonstration about four years
ago," says Rassin. "He knows his business very well."
...... A self-described "technophile," Benowitz has pioneered the use of videotaped depositions and other court-reporting technologies during the past three decades. Now, he is focusing on his videoconferencing venture, hosting meetings for clients, consulting on design, and selling complete systems, which typically cost from $10,000 to $50,000.
......Worldwide Videoconferencing launched in 1989, and opened the AT&T/Sprint videoconference center in downtown Miami. Benowitz will not disclose revenue figures, but says his clients include Beacon Council, BellSouth, Citicorp, Ryder System and ADP Totalsource. Charges range from $325 to $600 per hour for conferences in the US; rates for international conferences depend on the countries involved.
......In addition to hosting videoconferencing, Worldwide also installs systems. Recently the company helped law firm Holland & Knight design its own system. Another client was the Miami Jewish Home & Hospital on Miami Beach, which purchased a system to help elderly residents stay in touch with their families.
......Communication was a natural career choice for Benowitz, who as a boy translated for his hearing-impaired mother. He received a scholarship to the Interboro Institute Business in Manhattan and was on track to become a dental technician when he was so impressed by a court case he witnessed that he switched to court reporting.
......Benowtiz came to Miami in 1960, joining Jack W. Mallicoat & Associates as one of Florida's youngest court reporters. A few years later, he started his own court-reporting business. "Allen was able to surround himself with quality clients, and the business was a success," recalls Alvin Brown, a retired partner in the Miami accounting firm Morrison, Brown, Argiz & Company, who encouraged the young man to form H. Allen Benowitz & Associates.
......In 1972, Miami attorney Mac Melvin asked Benowitz to videotape an ailing witness in Connecticut in an estate case. "This was one of the first videotape depositions in the country," Benowitz says. "This case went to trial four years later, and the videotape stood up as evidence."
......Benowitz began exploring other outlets for court reporting technology, including the use of computers for transcriptions and videoconferencing. In 1989, he launched his videoconferencing firm as part of the Legal Image Network Communications (LINC) of court-reporting firms offering video services. Two years later, he accomplished a technological feat at the National Association of Court Reporters meeting in Chicago - an event he recalls as his greatest accomplishment.
......."We demonstrated the merging of all technologies into one," he says. The session included a video camera deposition, computer transcription, videoconferencing to multiple cities, a computerized disk of the testimony and captioning for the hearing -impaired. "I also told the conference about my mother being deaf," he says. "That was a very moving moment for me. I was proud to send her the tape with my words
on it."
......Benowitz merged his 100-employee firm with New Jersey-based Veritext in 1998. Although he is still Florida vice president for Veritext, the merger allows Benowitz to focus more attention on the new world of videoconferencing. "Price is down, ease of use is up, room requirements are simpler, bandwidth costs are down and equipment quality is better," says Benowitz." The historical barriers to videoconferencing equipment are dropping away."
- Richard Westlund

Source: Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce
Heading: Worldwide Videoconferencing/Veritext-Florida Reporting Company
H. Allen Benowitz
President / VP-Sales, Marketing & Client Relations

Worldwide Videoconferencing, (WWVC) represents world-leading equipment manufacturers for legal, business and healthcare applications, specializing in videoconferencing for telemedicine. Formed in 1989, WWVC originally offered attorneys the ability to question witnesses anywhere in the world without traveling. As President, H. Allen Benowitz strives to ensure WWVC remains the first in the introduction of new technologies and business strategies to benefit existing clients and attract record numbers of new clients. The company was the first to introduce videotaping technologies to the legal profession, first to offer computer-aided transcription in Florida, and first to introduce computerized litigation support in Florida, enabling attorneys to analyze transcripts on computers. Services include: Videoconference in public room rental, equipment sales, consulting, network design and project management. In 1998, WWVC merged with Veritext, LLC, and as a result of new capital infusion, Mr. Benowitz engineered the purchase of four Florida reporting firms, which quadrupled revenues. It is now the largest court reporting and legal technologies firm in Miami-Dade County.