A new report by Global Industry Analysts says the video conferencing market is set to grow in the coming years and will become a $14 billion global industry by 2017.

That’s from Mother Nature Network -- everybody’s networking these days, it seems -- which notes that it’s also going to bring along “improved image quality, increasing adoption among small- and medium-sized businesses, and rising demand from developing markets, such as ones in the Asia-Pacific.”

We hear them on the increased image quality. For a long time we couldn’t understand why video conferencing wasn’t wildly popular, why everybody and their brother weren’t doing it, then we were in a video conference with, uh, less than wonderful image and sound quality. It was as painful an experience as we’ve had recently, and we include watching the entire Jack & Jill trailer in that.

There’s a free summary of the GIA report available online (see Mother Nature’s link above), but it “doesn’t pinpoint the current size of the video conferencing market,” according to Mother: “Tavis McCourt (News - Alert), a senior technology analyst for Morgan Keegan, says the industry is now a roughly $4 billion one. Given that figure, he doesn’t believe the market will reach GIA’s projection.”

It would seem an optimistic stretch. Maybe they’re counting on the worldwide economy to get a lot worse and the cost of business travel to reach prohibitive proportions. Then even average-quality videoconferencing would look a lot better.

Hey look, we dislike business travel as much as the next guy, but we understand those who see the value in the face to face, the personal contact, especially with a new client.

Currently the United States is the largest video conferencing market, Mother Nature says, adding that “a good chunk of the industry’s growth is likely to come from the Asia-Pacific, currently the fastest growing market.”