Human Productivity Lab - HSL's Content Channel

PRESENCE 2009 Conference - Update Nov 11th-13th Los Angeles

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:29:28 -0500

<form mt:asset-id="2049" class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;" contenteditable="false"><img alt="PRESENCE_09.jpg" src="http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/images/PRESENCE_09.jpg" class="mt-image-center" style="margin: 0pt auto 20px; text-align: center; display: block;" height="53" width="550" /></form><a href="http://ispr.info/conference"><b>PRESENCE 2009</b></a> is right around the corner and it looks to be a particularly rich and rewarding conference. In addition to a diverse group of interesting paper presentations, we'll have several demonstrations of telepresence technologies including telepresence conferencing systems from <a href="http://www.brightcom.com/Index.html">BrightCom</a> and <a href="http://www.digitalvideoenterprises.com/">Digital Video Enterprises</a>, true knowledge-building discussion sessions, various social events, and three outstanding keynote speakers:<br /><br /><form mt:asset-id="2046" class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;" contenteditable="false"><img alt="Barbara_Hayes-Roth.jpg" src="http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/images/Barbara_Hayes-Roth.jpg" class="mt-image-left" style="margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt; float: left;" height="262" width="198" /></form><b><a href="http://www.ksl.stanford.edu/people/bhr/">Barbara Hayes-Roth</a></b>, an internationally recognized expert in intelligent agents and interactive<br />characters. She is the former Director of the Adaptive Agents Project and the Virtual Theater Project at Stanford University.  She is the founder and President of Extempo Systems which is developing life-like coach-bots to provide personalized one-to-one coaching.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <br /><form mt:asset-id="2052" class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;" contenteditable="false"><img alt="Howard_S_Lichtman_TO.jpg" src="http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/images/Howard_S_Lichtman_TO.jpg" class="mt-image-left" style="margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt; float: left;" height="255" width="200" /></form><b><a href="http://www.humanproductivitylab.com/bios/index.php">Howard S. Lichtman</a></b>, founder and President of the Human Productivity Lab, an independent research consultancy that advises organizations looking to invest in telepresence technologies. Mr. Lichtman is the Publisher of <i><b>Telepresence Options</b></i> and the editor of the <i>Telepresence Telegraph</i>, the most widely read newsletter following telepresence conferencing, the author of numerous papers and publications on telepresence and  telepresence conferencing, and his writings and analysis have been featured in over a dozen national and international publications.  <br /><br /><br /><br /><form mt:asset-id="2048" class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;" contenteditable="false"><img alt="Albert_Skip_Rizzo.jpg" src="http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/images/Albert_Skip_Rizzo.jpg" class="mt-image-left" style="margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt; float: left;" height="288" width="200" /></form><b><a href="http://vrpsych.ict.usc.edu/people/rizzo.html">Albert "Skip" Rizzo</a></b>, Research Scientist and Research Professor at the Institute for Creative<br />Technologies and Department of Psychiatry/School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California.  Dr. Rizzo is the Co-Director of the VRPSYCH Lab at USC which conducts research on the design, development, and evaluation of Virtual Reality systems for clinical assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The full schedule and all the conference details are on the conference website, <font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><b><a href="http://ispr.info/conference">http://ispr.info/conference</a>.</b></font><br /><br /><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><b>Telepresence Conferencing Demonstrations include:</b></font><br /><form mt:asset-id="1912" class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;" contenteditable="false"><a href="http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/images/Brightcom%20L37_No%20enclosure.JPG"><img alt="Brightcom L37_No enclosure.JPG" src="http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/assets_c/2009/09/Brightcom%20L37_No%20enclosure-thumb-250x194.jpg" class="mt-image-right" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 20px 20px; float: right;" height="194" width="250" /></a></form><br /><form mt:asset-id="1043" class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;" contenteditable="false"><a href="http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/images/DVE_Telepresence_Podium.jpg"><img alt="DVE_Telepresence_Podium.jpg" src="http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/assets_c/2008/09/DVE_Telepresence_Podium-thumb-250x167.jpg" class="mt-image-left" style="margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt; float: left;" height="167" width="250" /></a></form><br /><b><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The <a href="http://www.dvetelepresence.com/products/podium.asp">Digital Video Enterprises Telepresence Podium</a> and the <a href="http://www.brightcom.com/product_lumina_37.html">BrightCom Lumina L37</a><br /><font style="font-size: 1.25em;"><br />PRESENCE 2009 / Telepresence Industry Professionals Dinner - Wednesday, Nov 11th  6:30 PM - 9:00 PM - Marina Del Ray, CA </font></b><br /><br /><form mt:asset-id="2045" class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;" contenteditable="false"><img alt="PRESENCE_TIP_09.jpg" src="http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/images/PRESENCE_TIP_09.jpg" class="mt-image-center" style="margin: 0pt auto 20px; text-align: center; display: block;" height="232" width="550" /></form>Academia meets industry at a dinner for PRESENCE 2009 researchers interested in telepresence technologies and <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=76977"><i><b>Telepresence Industry Professionals</b></i></a>.  The dinner is open to academics, researchers, and members of the telepresence, videoconferencing, and visual collaboration industries interested in the next generation of telepresence technologies. <br /><br /><b>Details:</b><br /><br /><b>Wednesday Evening, 6:30 PM</b><br /><b>Dress:</b> Casual<br /><b>Economics:</b> Dutch Treat<br /><b>Hosts:</b> Howard S. Lichtman, <b>Publisher</b> - <i><b>Telepresence Options</b></i> <br />          Matthew Lombard, <b>President</b> - <b>International Society of Presence Research</b>  <br /><br /><b>Tony P's Dockside Grill</b><br />4445 Admiralty Way, Marina Del Rey, CA<br />(310) 823-4534<br /><a href="http://www.tonyps.com/">http://www.tonyps.com</a><br /><br /><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&hl=en&view=map&f=d&daddr=4445%20Admiralty%20Way,%20Marina%20Del%20Rey,%20CA&geocode=CQCYNJPZ7zJmFW-MBgIdwKHw-A">Directions Via Google Maps</a> <br /><br /> <div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>

Forrester Interview with Human Productivity Lab President Howard S. Lichtman on Telepresence

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:42:50 -0500

Forrester Research interviewed Human Productivity Lab founder and Telepresence Options publisher Howard Lichtman for their recent publication: The CIO's Role in Enterprise Collaboration: Tapping the Groundswell. The superb report by Liz Brady, Maggie Zweiben, Laura Koetzle, and Nigel Fenwick explores best practices for using collaboration tools (including telepresence) for strategic advantage. The full report is, unfortunately, only available to the C-level executives on Forrester's CIO Leadership Board, however, they were good enough to allow us to republish Howard's interview.

Interview with Howard Lichtman, President - Human Productivity Lab

What strategic advantage can CIOs gain for their organizations if they leverage collaboration tools?

The number one thing is time, and that's everyone's most valuable commodity - organizations are rich in cash but poor in time. If CIOs focus on technology that improves personal or business communication inside and outside an organization with vendors, partners, or customers, then they get strategic advantage. In a global, multinational organization that is dispersed, you can improve productivity by eliminating physical travel and coming to decisions faster by huddling the team on an immediate or ad hoc basis. There is no better tool for this than telepresence.

What is the need for telepresence when organizations already have videoconferencing?

Videoconferencing improved and humanized the way that people interacted but had distinct limitations because people didn't really like it, which is demonstrated by usage. It is used only 5 to 15 hours per month, and the usage is also limited because of technical reasons, including firewall, network, ease of use, and reliability. People don't like to use it - it is hard to use and uncomfortable. Everyone is 6 inches tall; the body language is hard to read; it's like The Hollywood Squares. We like telepresence because it solves the problems of videoconferencing, which is end user acceptance. If you get the human factors right (e.g., life-size remote participants, studio-quality acoustics, accurate flesh tones, etc.) and create an immersive experience instead of observant experiences, the usage goes through the roof to more than 50 hours per month. People can stay in the environments longer because it feels more like a real meeting. They focus and pay attention more, and they get more feedback and social pressure to participate. We've all been on conference calls where people are surfing the Net and checking their email.

What other collaboration tools are proving to be most effective for organizations?

I really, really like the rear-projection whiteboard. There is the ability to convey information in a group really rapidly. You go from capturing information in the smart notebook tool where it can be immediately digitized and shared, and then you can capture the notes of a meeting.

What role should the CIO play in leading and managing collaboration in the workplace?

The role of the CIO is to get the right tools into the knowledge workers' hands and give them what they need to communicate more effectively internally or externally with customers. The CIO needs to remove the barriers to collaboration by upgrading or doing away with tools that don't make sense. Organizations that view CIOs as critical thought leaders in leveraging technology and empowering them to make technology decisions to get ahead of the curve and figure out what's next will have a strategic competitive advantage over the organizations whose CIOs just run the phone system and servers.

How does a collaboration environment enable the capture of informal communication and make it valuable to the business?

In the old days, it was about finding and knowing where to get or buy the right information or whom to call for the right information. Now we're overloaded with the information, and it's "how do I minimize the unhelpful or inappropriate information that I'm being inundated with?" This unhelpful information takes away from the most valuable commodity of time. The CIO has to eliminate information that wastes the employees' time in the firm. In the case of a wiki, for example, built by the customer support organization, it is helpful and has immediate impact. But if you encourage every employee to create a blog, it can be hit or miss and may be contributing to the information overload problem.

What is the return on investment for telepresence?

With telepresence, there are three measures: 1) hard-dollar return (savings from travel); 2) soft-dollar return when you're not paying someone to cool their heels in the airport, stand in line at the rental car and hotel, or pack and unpack; and 3) the opportunity cost of investment in what the executive would have been doing had he not been traveling. Telepresence is not a replacement for travel because you want your folks in the field, making real relationships with real people. At the same time, there's an amazing amount of travel (internal and external) that is not high-value that this technology could replace.

Other:

We have updated the Human Productivity Lab's Telepresence Consulting Website. We have added examples of some of the consulting services we have provided to global Fortune 20 oil companies, international investment banks, and national / international standards bodies. On the vendor side we have included information on Arming Telepresence Commission Driven Mercenaries, our "open source" competitive overview/sales training for telepresence vendors, managed service providers, and carriers. We have also included examples of consulting engagements for established telepresence vendors and those looking to enter the telepresence marketplace.

Telepresence Webinar - Tomorrow - Thursday, August 7th @ 10:00 AM PST / 1:00 EST

Bringing High Definition to your Data Network - August 7th @ 1:00 PM EST
A free webinar on telepresence for the enterprise led by VoIP News Senior Editorial Director Owen Linderholm and featuring Human Productivity Lab President Howard S. Lichtman, and Hugh McCullen, General Manager of Multimedia Services @ Nortel.

Register Here: http://www.voip-news.com/webinar/high-def-network/?tfso=1686

Telepresence Managed Service Providers - Glowpoint, Iformata, and Nortel with Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:29:42 -0500

According to industry analysts the market for telepresence managed services could be worth up to $4 Billion per year in the coming years. Perhaps this is why telepresence and videoconferencing managed service providers have been in the news lately with BT Conferencing acquiring WireOne Communications in April and Nortel Global Services announcing a deal to provide managed telepresence and videoconferencing services to as many as 130 of Deloitte's member firm locations around the world. A deal that could be worth, by my back o' the napkin calculations, up to $25MM+ a year in revenue depending on the final mix of telepresence, traditional videoconferencing end-points, and network connections. So when I saw that our friends at Wainhouse Research had interviewed Glowpoint CEO Mike Brandofino I though our audience would be interested in what he had to say. I also interviewed Hugh McCullen from Nortel Global Services and Brian Kinne from Iformata Communications as well and threw in some of my thoughts and analysis for good measure

The following is an interview with Glowpoint CEO Mike Brandofino from the always insightful Wainhouse Research Bulletin.

WRB: Glowpoint seems to have come back from the dead ... congratulations ... give
us a quick update on your status today; what are your major revenue segments ....

MB: Thanks and yes, to use a Mark Twain quote, "The rumors of our death have been
greatly exaggerated". The fact is Glowpoint lost a little focus a few years back and had
to overcome some issues, but we have been making major strides. Since my team took
charge in 2006, we have grown revenue by over 30%, improved sales from our channels and cut our annual operating expenses by over $10 million. Our revenue is primarily made up of subscriptions to our managed video services, which often includes our managed network. We are seeing more demand for managed services on customer networks or third partner networks, especially as it relates to a Telepresence VNOC, which will be a big part of our growth as we move forward. We have also been growing our managed multipoint bridging business which now represents about 16% of our revenue.

WRB: What effect, if any, has HD had on your business?

MB: The introduction of HD has been a catalyst for us on a number of fronts. We have been focusing on providing alternatives to satellite feeds for the broadcast industry for a number of years. The introduction of HD enabled us to grow this segment of our business by 137% from 2006 to 2007. In addition, we are seeing customers who went down the converged path, and put video on their own networks, come back to us because they say they had a tough enough time supporting video at 384 and 512kps on their networks. With executives demanding the higher quality of HD, they just don't want to deal with it. Customers are looking to us to provide an easy plug in solution as they upgrade to HD.

WRB: What effect if any, has telepresence had on your business?

MB: A big impact! Rather than video getting easier, telepresence is more complicated and truly drives mission critical support of video. This creates a driving force to support managed services and high quality / high bandwidth networks. Suddenly customers, manufacturers and carriers are looking around for someone to manage their telepresence rooms and allow for unique capabilities such as business to business or access to public and private environments. This is everything we have been doing for some time now. The challenges faced with properly executing company-to-company and network-to-network video calling are very evident and put Glowpoint in a perfect position. We launched VNOC services and our Telepresence Exchange Network (TEN) service in response to these demands and are already driving new revenue as a result.

WRB: What is your relationship with Polycom and Cisco in the telepresence world?

MB: We have always been agnostic as it relates to supporting all of the video products on the market and have carried this approach forward as it relates to telepresence. We are supporting Polycom as one of their VNOC providers, positioned by them as a branded offering and have both RPX and TPX Telepresence equipment in our NOC and labs. We have also signed an agreement with Tata Communications to provide a branded VNOC service for Cisco TelePresence rooms. Additionally, we have been working with all the various products including Haivision which is used in both HP Halo and Teliris solutions. I believe it makes us the only service provider with this type of experience across multiple platforms.

WRB: Why would anyone want to do business with Glowpoint when they can do business with more financially sound companies like ATT, Verizon, or even Masergy for that matter?

MB: I think the first thing to point out is you are comparing us to network companies and we don't consider ourselves a network company. We are a managed video services company that happens to be able to also provide the bandwidth using our own network as an option. However, we increasingly are providing our services over other networks including the three you've mentioned here. So we are more focused on partnering with these other companies than being just a competitor. Having said that, Glowpoint has proven to be extremely resilient and dependable on its own since its launch in late 2000. I think it is our unique capabilities and vast experience in providing managed video services to customers in over 1200 cities and 35 countries around the world that gives customers confidence in our service and helps to overshadow any perceived concerns of our stability.

WRB: Ok, so, as the CEO of Glowpoint, what keeps you up at night?

MB: There is a "perfect storm" brewing for the video industry. The components creating this "perfect storm" are the entrance of a powerhouse company into the space, the rising cost of fuel, the globalization of businesses, the slowing economy, global warming, and a change in the demographics of the work force where the culture is comfortable with and expects to use video communications. Glowpoint is right in the middle of this storm and we are rapidly becoming the "go-to" company for manufacturers, carriers and resellers. What keeps me up at night is achieving the right balance of partnerships and opportunities. We manage our business carefully and believe in organic growth, therefore we need to choose our partners wisely. Scaling the business and supporting the demand is a fine balance which we are working hard on every day.

Video: Glowpoint - Telepresence Managed Services

Hugh McCullen - Nortel Multimedia Services

Hugh McCullen is the General Manager of Multimedia Services at Nortel and responsible for strategy, integration, and delivery of service solutions at Nortel. While the SEC's "Safe Harbor" provisions kept him from either confirming or denying my back o' the napkin estimate of the ultimate value of Nortel's global deal with Deloitte, he was good enough to answer some of my other questions.

HSL: So why are organizations like Deloitte with sophisticated IT organizations turning to managed service providers like Nortel to support telepresence?

Hugh: Companies want telepresence and video to be as reliable as voice and secure as data. They want telepresence to be evolutionary and would like to bring along their legacy video investments in a strategy that ultimately incorporates their plans for voice and data.

HSL: What are companies looking for in a telepresence managed service provider?

Hugh: They want to reduce the barriers to entry in deploying telepresence and turn a CapEx model into an OpEx model. They want to replace a budget line item for travel with a budget line item for telepresence. They want to be tactical with respect to service integration: Scalable, utility-based pricing with minimum technology risk.

HSL: What is the future for telepresence managed service providers like Nortel?

Hugh: Managed service providers will become the hubs of telepresence community of interest networks (CoINs) and extra-net connections. Client connections are typically 90/10 Intra-company / Inter-company which we believe will be moving towards 60/40. The focus for managed service providers will move from "Can you bridge the call?" to "Can you make telepresence and video easy-to-use and intuitive?" with a common scheduling platform for checking inter-company availability and security controls.

Video: Nortel Telepresence Services

Brian Kinne - Iformata Communications

Brian Kinne is one of the charter members of what I refer to as the Telepresence Old Boys Club. He was a friend and colleague of mine at telepresence pioneer TeleSuite where he was SVP of Sales, he spent time at our arch rival Teliris as SVP of Sales, was President and COO of surgical telepresence solution provider MedPresence, he was EVP of Sales and Marketing at Destiny Conferencing (TeleSuite recapitalized), and after Destiny Conferencing was acquired by Polycom in January of 2007 for $50MM he hung around a year as Senior Director of Business Development. Now unleashed from his golden handcuffs he has rejoined Iformata Communications (which was spun out of Destiny Conferencing during the Polycom acquisition) as Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Brian was good enough to catch us up on what is going on at Iformata.

HSL: Who is Iformata Communications and what do you do?

Brian: Iformata is a telepresence and videoconferencing managed service provider that supports a variety of telepresence and videoconferencing systems including systems from Polycom, LifeSize Communications, TANDBERG, and others for some of the best known companies in the world. We also private label Telepresence Video Network Operation Center (VNOC) services for some of the telepresence and videoconferencing industry's most respected companies. We design, provision, and manage true QoS network solutions for enterprises and run a telepresence and videoconferencing Community of Interest Network (CoIN) that allows our clients to connect with their vendors, partners, and customers on our network or other networks.

HSL: Why do companies choose Iformata?

Brian: We make telepresence and videoconferencing easy. When you buy an airline ticket from New York to San Francisco nobody asks you to fly the plane. We eliminate technology risk for companies that want to deploy telepresence and make the end-user experience easy enough for even the CEO to use. Clients place a single call to our (800) number or make a reservation on the web and we handle every aspect of setting up the call and making sure the experience is flawless. At the appointed time participants simply walk into the room and everything is already connected.   We pro-actively monitor the equipment in the room to ensure that it is always available and provide a help desk for ad-hoc changes, help with the data collaboration tools, or any other issues where an end-user might require assistance. We have a superb professional services organization with deep expertise in IP networking, telepresence and videoconferencing that can help organizations interested in building these capabilities internally rapidly bring them on-line.

HSL: What does the future hold for Iformata?

Brian: For years Iformata has been hidden behind the scenes providing services for some of the best known service providers in the industry. Although we will continue to provide private-labeled telepresence and videoconferencing VNOC services we are also going to be re-launching the Iformata brand and sharing our capabilities more directly with enterprises that are looking to deploy telepresence.

We will be expanding our professional services practice, announcing new partnerships, new customers, and expanding our coverage globally.

While many of our competitors are just learning telepresence technologies and experimenting on their customers, Iformata has been supporting telepresence for over a decade. We have been in the forefront since the beginning but haven't done a very good job of communicating our capabilities to the market. Expect that to change.

Video: Iformata Communications

Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis

As Mike Brandofino mentions in the video overview of Glowpoint, analysts estimate that $3-4 billion dollars will be generated in managed service revenue to support telepresence applications. Cisco estimates that the total market opportunity (network, endpoints, and managed services) will be $5.5 Billion by 2011. Maybe this is why telepresence and videoconferencing managed service providers have been in the news lately with BT Conferencing acquiring WireOne Communications in April and Nortel Global Services announcing a deal to provide managed telepresence and videoconferencing services to as many as 130 of Deloitte's member firm locations around the world. By my back o' the napkin calculations Nortel's Deloitte deal alone could be worth up to $25MM+ a year depending on the final mix of telepresence, traditional videoconferencing end-points, and network connections. More importantly, Deloitte is one of the most important of what I call telepresence "headends" which should drive additional network connections for Nortel from firms who would benefit from having Deloitte "Right Down the Hall"


Telepresence Headends - From Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration, and the Future of Global Business at the Speed of Light

As I have written before, deploying telepresence between a couple of locations with no need for multi-point is fairly straightforward, ensure that you have the right amount of QoS bandwidth between locations, architect the LAN correctly, program the call directory, train the staff, and you are off.

With multiple locations across multiple timezones with the need for multi-point and inter-company video connections the complexities grow exponentially. You need to purchase, inventory, asset-tag, configure, patch, and support video & network infrastructure components. You have to provision bandwidth globally - purchasing and configuring network circuits often among multiple providers whose contracts must be negotiated, approved, tracked, and annually reviewed. You need to staff a 24 x 7 x 365 help desk to handle reservations, technical issues, ad-hoc changes, etc. etc.

So companies turn to managed service providers like Glowpoint, Iformata, Nortel, and WireOne (now BT Conferencing) to handle the complexity and also to connect inter-company calls to vendors, joint venture partners, and customers.

As Hugh McCullen mentioned in his interview, expect to see the Telepresence Managed Service providers become the hubs of Telepresence Community of Interest Networks (CoINs) providing the infrastructure, network connections, gateways, expertise, and directories to reliably and securely connect inter-company telepresence and video calls.

Other:

Bringing High Definition to your Data Network   - August 7th @ 1:00 PM EST
A free webinar on telepresence for the enterprise led by VoIP News Senior Editorial Director Owen Linderholm and featuring Human Productivity Lab President Howard S. Lichtman, and Hugh McCullen, General Manager of Multimedia Services @ Nortel.

Register Here: http://www.voip-news.com/webinar/high-def-network/?tfso=1686


Telepresence Industry Professionals

Our industry association on Linked In for professionals from the telepresence industry now has over 350+ members! If you are a member of the telepresence industry with a profile on Linked In then please hit this link to join: http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/76977/3745DE1F46C0

Telepresence @ InfoComm - A Review with Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:34:57 -0500

Telepresence @ InfoComm

Video: Telepresence@InfoComm - A Video Review

I spent the majority of last week at InfoComm in Las Vegas and have spent the 1st part of this week trying to recover from the sensory and informational overload that the conference slams into the cerebral cortex.

Telepresence was front and center at InfoComm this year with a one-day program on the subject put together by the Interactive Multimedia Collaborative Communications Alliance. It was a superb program that entertained as much as it educated.

The IMCCA's Telepresence Manufacturers' and Service Provider's Forum - Joe Laezza - Glowpoint, Marcio Macedo - Polycom, Ken Scaturro - York Telecom, John Moellering - Cisco, Peter Nutley - Tandberg, and Chris Carr - MASERGY Communications

The topic that generated the most controversy at the conference was the meaning of the word: Telepresence.

For those that couldn't make Vegas, let me break down the big debate for you:

The videoconferencing companies (primarily Polycom but LifeSize, Tandberg, and even Cisco are also to blame) seek to expand the definition of telepresence to include any high definition videoconferencing end-point delivered over an IP network. In fact, bizarrely, Polycom's actual definition was anything "HD over IP".

The telepresence purists, like myself, Ira Weinstein of Wainhouse Research, and what appeared to me to be the majority of conference attendees, argued that the word "telepresence" should be reserved for something closer to "visual collaboration solutions that replicate as closely as possible an in-person experience and make participants feel a sense of "presence" with remote conferees."

Is Telepresence simply "HD over IP" or is it something more?

The argument then devolved into a lively debate over what makes a visual collaboration solution "Telepresence". John Steitz from Georgetown University made a critical point when he announced that while he didn't have a precise definition, he "knew it when he saw it" driving home the point that Telepresence is an experience.

So... what makes telepresence so special and separates it from videoconferencing... even HD videoconferencing over IP?

I took the liberty of putting together a chart to demonstrate some of the elements that need to be addressed to create an experience that "replicates as closely as possible an in-person experience". For the sake of simplicity I gave each of the elements a value of 5% however the reality is that some elements are more important than others... Some of the most important: high definition video, audio quality, participant positioning, and eye-contact or the approximation of eye-contact. In on-stage, projected, and holographic telepresence solutions obviously the quality/size/reflectivity of the display is as important or more important than in solutions that simply replicate a tradition across the table business meeting.

You will notice that I included a number of elements that don't necessarily pertain to the visual/acoustical experience: Reliability, Security, Utility, Compatibility, and Ease-of-use. While these don't necessarily improve the feeling of being in the same physical space I believe they are crucial to the overall experience and improve end-user acceptance.

You simply aren't going to reach your organizational objectives of getting road warriors off planes, accelerating collaboration, cutting costs, etc. if your telepresence solution is not reliable, secure, useful, and easy-to-use. This is why we are such big fans of telepresence managed service providers like HP Halo, Iformata, Glowpoint, Nortel, and Polycom, who provide managed services that improve the reliability, compatibility, and ease-of-use of telepresence systems. We also like the developing telepresence/video exchange networks such as MASERGY and Virtela and Telepresence Community of Interest Networks (CoINs) such as HP Halo, Polycom, and Teliris who improve the compatibility and utility by connecting customers to other organization on their networks for inter-company business.

The bottom line for the enterprise is when you adopt solutions that more faithfully replicate an in-person meeting experience you improve end-user acceptance which improves usage which improves ROI over what can be achieved by using traditional videoconferencing alone.

The IMCCA's Telepresence "Ask the Experts" Panel -Case Murphy - AOL, Rich DeBrino - Advances in Technology, Rob Arnold - Telanetix, Mark Roberts - Polycom, Dr. S. Ann Earon - TRI, Robert McCandless - BrightCom, and Dr. Steve McNelley - DVE

Small Group Telepresence System - Las Vegas Shoot Out!

Digital Video Enterprises and TelePresence Tech

Rich DeBrino from Advances in Technology demonstrates the TelePresence Tech Room

Both DVE and TelepPresence Tech were presenting somewhat similar new small group telepresence solutions, The DVE Huddle Room 70 and the TelePresence Tech Room, almost side-by-side in Las Vegas. Both solutions offer a hidden eye-level camera, seamless display, open platform for all codec/camera platforms, and the ability to immediately improve the experience/usage of a traditional VTC deployment without a greenfield upgrade. The DVE Huddle Room 70 comes bundled with the LifeSize Room for $84,000 and the TelePresence Tech Room comes bundled with a Sony 1080i XG80 for $83,900.

If solely measured by attendee interest, the TelePresence Tech Room stole the show. Their HD floating image gathered crowd after crowd after crowd and really demonstrated the difference in experience that a seamless telepresence display technology delivers over the TV set. The company also announced a new deal with Sony that combines Sony HD videoconferencing systems with the TelePresence Tech display technology.

However I thought practicality and the bezel-less display gave DVE the ultimate edge. The floating seamless image of the TelePresence Tech Room requires a black background to achieve and while the system can be used without the black background you lose some of the magic and the bezel of the reflected display becomes visible. The footprint of the system is considerably larger as well and the camera somewhat visible.

The DVE Huddle Room 70 with its revolutionary bezel-less display in a demonstration

The new DVE Huddle Room 70 features a revolutionary bezel-less display that, when communicating with another Huddle Room 70 system in a similarly colored room makes the display blend in with the background. Coupled with the hidden eye-level camera, HD image, and intimate 6-8 foot distance from the screen, the system produces a superb conferencing experience. While it was not being demonstrated at InfoComm, the system can also be used in "Augmented Reality" mode which produces a floating image similar to the TelePresence Tech Room experience but requires a disassembly of the unit so it can't be done on the fly.

The DVE Huddle 70 in Augmented Reality mode with rear camera housing removed, floating images and the camera hidden in the wall

Video: Interview with DVE Co-Founder Jeff Machtig on the DVE Huddle 70

HP Halo and TANDBERG

I am lumping HP Halo and TANDBERG into one bucket because they announced an expanded alliance around video collaboration and they were exhibiting together at InfoComm. TANDBERG announced the new single screen T1, dubbed "Instant Telepresence" by the Tandberg marketing department, the system offers a 65 inch LCD screen elegantly coupled with Tandberg's Precision HD Camera and C90 Codec for 1080p video resolution.

TANDBERG also announced a new "tele-collaboration" solution developed with high-end display and visualization manufacturer Barco dubbed "The Wonder Wall".(PDF) The system combines TANDBERG's 1080p high definition videoconferencing technology with Barco's large format display and pixel management system to create a large format video and data collaboration "wall" that can display multiple video and/or data visualizations. Different video, videoconferencing, or data inputs can be dragged, dropped, expanded, or minimized during a session with multiple windows open simultaneously on the large format screen / wall.

The TANDBERG-Barco Tele-Collaboration System Aka "The Wonder Wall"

LifeSize Communications

John Serrao and I had a chance to sit down with Craig Malloy, CEO, and Colin Buechler, SVP of Marketing, at LifeSize Communications via their three screen telepresence offering: The LifeSize Conference. While we reviewed the LifeSize Conference when it was launched in October of last year and were impressed with it's capabilities and price point, this was my first opportunity to see the system in person. The human factors need some work but I was impressed with the high definition images and sub-$40,000 price point. I was more impressed with the company's continuing growth. LifeSize grew 200% last year and, according to Craig, is already up 150% this year. Digital Video Enterprises chose the LifeSize Room system to bundle with its new Huddle Room 70.

Telepresence Options Publisher Howard Lichtman and Human Productivity Lab Analyst John Serrao meet with Colin Buechler, SVP of Marketing (center screen left) and Craig Malloy, CEO (Center screen right) of LifeSize Communications using the LifeSize Conference

Telanetix

Telanetix was out in-force at InfoComm with two of the company's Digital Presence telepresence solutions. I had the chance to speak with Doug Johnson, the company's new CEO, Chris Calbi, Director of US Channel Sales, and Rob Arnold, Co-founder and CTO. The company announced a new stream computing joint technology agreement with AMD that builds on the company's work in developing videoconferencing solutions using low cost and flexible GPUs and CPUs vs. custom designed hardware using DSPs and FPGAs. The company recently upgraded their systems to 1080p HD at up to 60 fps and improved the compatibility with traditional standards-based videoconferencing systems. The company has also restructured their debt with over $26MM in new long term financing and continues to open demonstration centers around the world (You can now see Telanetix @ Imago in London).

One of two Telanetix Digital Presence systems at InfoComm

Glowpoint

Glowpoint was definitely in the house at InfoComm. Glowpoint COO Joe Laezza participated in the IMCCA's Telepresence Manufacturers and Service Providers Forum, the company released a white paper on the role of managed services for telepresence, threw an awesome party at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, and Glowpoint CEO Mike Brandofino was selected for the IMCCA's Board of Directors. Check back next week for the Telepresence Options premier of their new video on their company and their solutions for managed telepresence services.

Polycom

Since I covered Polycom's big announcement right before the show and the article has been up for almost two weeks I will direct you to the article and keep it short. The company launched new dual screen and a single screen version of their TPX series and improved the TPX 306M with pop up data collaboration monitors in the table.

HaiVision

The HaiVision Booth featured blind, inflatable German sharks suspended by dental floss (and the ultra low latency MAKO-HD codec)

HaiVision was in the house showing off their ultra low latency MAKO-HD codec. While I am always delighted with the picture quality, resolution, fluidity, and latency of the MAKO-HD, I was almost as equally impressed with finding out what the Mako-HD can do for other applications.

High Definition Digital Signage - Stream in HD to low-cost ($400 a box) Amino AmiNET 130 boxes connected to flat screens at a fraction of what some other digital signage solutions cost.

Record & Archive - Up to 10 MAKO-HD streams synchronously recorded with the company's SHARE-HD multi-stream network video recorder.

Direct HD Streaming to Flash with Wowza Media - the ability to stream HD content from the MAKO over the internet to any computer running Flash (95%+ of both Windows and Macs have Flash)

Vidyo

The Vidyo Room Running 720p HD at 60 fps Over a Standard Internet Connection in a
Digital Video Enteprises True Eye-Contact T-50 Telepresence System

I had the chance to sit down with Rob Hughes, Sr. Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Vidyo and get a demonstration of the Vidyo Room running 60 frames per second over a standard internet connection using a Digital Video Enterprises T-50 telepresence system connected to a variety of desktop Vidyo systems around the country. IMPRESSIVE! Vidyo is definitely a company to watch in the videoconferencing space. The company was originally founded as Layered Media and only emerged from stealth mode in January of this year. The company has developed a number of videoconferencing solutions around Scalable Video Coding (SVC - formerly H.264 annex G) which improves the quality of video over non QoS networks like the internet (I recommend Andrew Davis' excellent whitepaper for the specifics) The company also announced a partnership with Digital Video Enterprises that will combine Vidyo's SVC videoconferencing systems with Digital Video Enterprises true eye-contact telepresence display solutions.

Virtela

Jason Redisch, Principal Architect @ Virtela manning the booth late on Friday afternoon

We spent some time talking with Virtela's Principal Architect and fellow Northern Virginian, Jason Redisch about Virtela's Secure Video Extranet service. Virtela is a Virtual Network Operator which means that instead of owning expensive fiber all over the globe they colocate their Regional Policy Centers in carrier neutral co-location facilities around the world with connectivity to 250+ carriers. Because they have connectivity with multiple providers they can test performance on multiple networks in real time and route traffic only on optimum paths avoiding networks that are congested or down. This unique network topology allows them to provision service using regional carriers cost-effectively and then ensure QoS on the long haul. They offer services in 190+ countries, VPNs in 120+ from over 5000+ access points around the world. Get the scoop (Whitepaper) here: http://www.virtela.net/whitepaper_details.aspx?ID=9

IP V Gateways

While IP V Gateways wasn't exhibiting at InfoComm, my conversation with co-founder and CEO Pat Montani was one of the most educational and by far the most interesting that I had in Las Vegas. IP V Gateways is a inter-connection specialist for true Quality-of-Service (QoS) video traffic. The company specializes in connecting diverse networks (enterprise and carrier) while maintaining the QoS required for real time delay and jitter intolerant networks like telepresence and videoconferencing.
The company is located in a carrier-neutral telco hotel in non-union Toronto where they can rapidly provision connectivity between networks and configure/reconfigure client infrastructure. They house hundreds of telepresence and videoconferencing bridges, session border controllers, and other video and networking infrastructure for some of the best known video solution providers and networks in the business who utilize their services and/or white label their offerings.

One of their most interesting offerings is a diagnostic tool called IPV Insight (PDF) which provides the ability to troubleshoot the quality of a telepresence or videoconferencing call. IPV Insight looks at both network quality (including the ability to independently test IP traversal over multiple networks including "last mile" providers) and the health of endpoints and intermediary devices including MCUs, gatekeepers, gateways, routers, and switches.

ELECTROSONIC

Karl Johnson made the trip from Jolly Old England to the desert of Nevada and was showing off the VN-MATRIX which transmits high-resolution audio-visual content in real-time between telepresence and other visual collaboration environments.

Interactive Multimedia Collaborative Communications Alliance (IMCCA)

Carol Zelkin, Executive Director of the IMCCA, and organizer of Telepresence @ InfoComm

A big thank you to Carol Zelkin, Dave Danto, and Ann Earon of the IMCCA for putting on such an educational and entertaining program on telepresence at InfoComm. IMCCA Board Member and Director of Telepresence Initiatives Mark Roberts, Vice President of Alliance Marketing at Polycom, is creating a special purpose group on telepresence for the IMCCA and we signed up immediately! I'd like to suggest the Silicon Plantation of Northern Virginia with its unbelievable density of telepresence systems and demonstration facilities (Cisco, HP Halo, Polycom, Tandberg, and Telanetix, all have demonstration facilities close by and I really hate to fly these days)

Digital Illusions

I was also able to spend time with Anne DeVilbiss, the co-founder of Digital Illusions, the North American license holder for on-stage and projected telepresence provider Musion. Musion is the same tech that helped Cisco transport Marthin DeBeer and Chuck Stucki to Bangalore and Telstra CTO Hugh Bradlow to Adelaide. As I speculated when DVE launched their Telepresence Stage, I expect we are going to be seeing more and more virtual presenters in the near future and it looks like Digital Illusions is going to be one of the companies that hooks it up in the U.S. of A.

Teliris

Teliris CEO and Co-founder Marc Trachtenberg demonstrates the InterACT TouchTable while Telepresence Options publisher Howard Lichtman (left), Wainhouse Research Analyst Ira Weinstein (top), and AV Technology publisher Sue Horwitz (with water) look on.

Teliris was out in force with a number of new announcements:

InterACT TouchTable - The TouchTable is a multi-touch surface computing platform that improves the data collaboration capabilities and the experience of the Teliris VirtuaLive telepresence environment. Participants can work with virtual documents, images, and even video and share the files around the globe in real time by sliding them across the table.

Video: The Teliris InterACT TouchTable In Action

While the initial capabilities of the TouchTable are limited this was one of the more important announcements of the show. Teliris has raised the bar on the industry by making a major improvement in the way that information will be displayed, interacted with, used, shared, and archived in collaborative environments. They are moving towards improving the utility, capabilities, and experience of their system in what could be an ultimately profound way. While they have not released a price for the system I am assuming it will be expensive and, while cool, it remains to be seen how many companies will adopt the limited capabilities of version one.

The company also announced new customer wins including: British American Tobacco, Aviva, Phillip Morris, and the New York Stock Exchange. Plus additional sales to Sony Ericsson, Merck, and GlaxoSmithKline.

Polycom expands TPX Product Line with Dual and Single Screen Systems

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:21:51 -0500

Polycom announced that they have expanded their TPX product line with the addition of dual and single screen systems as well as added content on the table (pop up data collaboration screens) to the TPX 306M. The dual screen version of the TPX 204M is $125,000. The single screen version is the TPX 102M for $75,000. The TPX 306M with content on the table pop up data collaboration screens is $219,000. Read the Press Release Here.

Polycom_TPX_204M

Polycom will be demonstrating the 306M with content on the table at their booth at the InfoComm HD Conferencing & Telepresence Showcase (booth no. C2976).

Polycom's Content on the Table

Speaking of InfoComm...

Telepresence@InfoComm - Best Bets!

Today, after I watch my first born son Burton Rand Thomas Kenneth Lichtman graduate from kindergarten :-), I am off to Las Vegas and InfoComm.

Please stop and say hello if you see me on the show floor! Here are some of our Telepresence "Best Bets" at the conference.

Howard Lichtman, President of the telepresence consultancy Human Productivity Lab will be attending InfoComm. If your organization is looking to do something cool with telepresence then please contact him at HSL@HumanProductivityLab.com with your interest.

The IMCCA's Telepresence@InfoComm Program on Thursday, June 19th in LVCC Room 219. Check out the full program Here.

Teliris will be holding a press conference to announce their 5th Generation Telepresence Platform on Wednesday, June 18th at 8:00 AM PST @ Booth No. C2438, keynoting the Telepresence@InfoComm Program, and hosting a private party in a secret locale high above the strip.

The HD Conferencing and Telepresence Showcase at InfoComm will be held the 18th, 19th, and 20th in the Central Hall 3, Booth C2976. View Demonstrations by Digital Video Enterprises, LifeSize Communications, Polycom, Telanetix, and TelePresence Tech.

Digital Video Enterprises is launching two new Telepresence Systems at InfoComm. The DVE Huddle 70 and the DVE Telepresence Stage. You will be able to find them in the HD Conferencing and Telepresence Showcase in the Central Hall 3, Booth C2976

Glowpoint will be representing their new Telepresence Exchange Network, premiering a schweet new video, and hosting a fly private party.

Polycom will be announcing a number of new telepresence offerings and a new and improved TPX 306M. You can also find them in the HD Conferencing and Telepresence Showcase in the Central Hall 3, Booth C2976 and in booth # N6019. Get a preview here.

Telepresence Tech will be showcasing their new TPT Room System at InfoComm and keynoting the IMCCA's Telepresence@InfoComm program. You will also be able to find them in the HD Conferencing and Telepresence Showcase in the Central Hall 3, Booth C2976

DVE launches the Telepresence Stage and Huddle Room 70

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:52:05 -0500

Digital Video Enterprises announced two new telepresence solutions today: The DVE Telepresence Stage, a portable telepresence system for projecting realistic life-size people and floating 3-D objects onto a stage environment and the DVE Huddle Room 70, a telepresence group system with a hidden, eye-level codec and a frameless display image.

DVE Co-founder Steve McNelley, left, appears on-stage virtually with a 3-D visualization of the globe with the very real DVE co-founder Jeff Machtig on the right.

The DVE Telepresence Stage is a patented portable telepresence solution that allows you to project life-size presenters and floating 3-D objects to a remote stage somewhere else in the world. The tech is similar to Cisco and Musion's On-Stage TelePresence Experience but with some important differentiators:

The system is uses a direct projection screen which appears to have a superior reflectivity to the Musion eye-liner foil. The projected image is bright, even on a lighted stage, with superb realism.
The system is portable. It can be set up in an hour, doesn't require "bouncing" the image off the stage eliminating the need to take up valuable stage real-estate, and can be removed in less than one-minute.

The DVE Telepresence Stage is $59,000 and includes the dimensional transparent projection screen, full road cases, environmental lights and props. The client supplies the projector.

Video- The DVE Telepresence Stage in Action

The DVE Huddle Room 70

The DVE Huddle Room 70 is a small group telepresence system that presents 1-2 remote participants life-size or additional participants scaled down. The system hides the camera at eye-level behind a piece of silvered glass called a beam-splitter. Hiding the camera improves the naturalness of a virtual meeting as the brain doesn't register the camera and adjust behavior. Locating the camera at eye-level improves eye-lines between participants and gives the approximation of eye-contact. The design of the system allows participants to sit closer to the display than most traditional telepresence group systems creating an intimate, immersive experience.

If you have seen other DVE beam-splitter telepresence solutions you will notice a substantial improvement in the Huddle Room 70: The new system utilizes a flat panel display image that eliminates the black bezel that previously framed remote participants. This creates a more immersive effect and allows you to blend the image into the environment more seamlessly if both sides have the same color wall so the remote participants seem to be in the same room.

The DVE Huddle 70 is $84,000 and comes bundled with the LifeSize Room High-Definition Camera and Codec platform. The system also includes a specially designed table, 2 interactive tablets for data collaboration, environmental lights, an LCD flat-panel display. The client provides their own chairs. The system can be utilized with any videoconferencing camera and codec.

More Articles on DVE and True Eye-Contact

DVE Tele-Immersion Room Debuts

DVE's co-founder Steve McNelley at Telepresence World

Digital Video Enterprises Launches Executive Telepresence System with Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis

Digital Video Enterprises Issued Landmark Patent for Next Generation Telepresence and Tele-Immersion

Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis

There is something magical about transporting a photo-realistic life-size human being halfway around the world that can interact with people as if they are in the same room. Our video on the Cisco/Musion On-Stage TelePresence Expererience has generated over 45,000 views on YouTube. There is another version that has generated over 280,000 views. There is something about the experience that seems to say: "The Future is Here!!"

And the future is here... it just isn't evenly distributed... yet! The DVE Telepresence Stage addresses a number of fundamental logistical challenges related to speakers and presenters addressing remote groups:

1. High-profile, sought after speakers usually don't reside in the same area as most of the gatherings that they are invited to address. In fact, the transportation of highly sought after speakers can add substantially to their ultimate fee as many require first-class airfare, world-class hotels, and reimbursement for their time while traveling.

2. A speaker can only be in one place at a time.

The telepresence revolution effectively addresses both of these issues. Now with the rental of a portable, easy-to-set-up-and-use telepresence system a speaker can address an audience anywhere in the world with a time commitment of the length of their address and the time to drive back and forth from where ever the remote system is set up AND can, potentially, address dozens of venues simultaneously. Expect to see more and more virtual speakers in the near future.

The DVE Huddle Room 70 - The system is very similar in form/function to the new Telepresence Tech TPT Room that I reviewed last month so many of my likes and dis-likes are the same. Both systems will be on-display at InfoComm in Las Vegas so look forward to an old-fashioned wild-west shoot out on the strip!

What I liked:

Eye-contact - Hiding the camera behind the beam splitter at eye-level provides for a more natural experience by keeping truer eye-lines and hiding the camera.

Open Platform & Easy Way to Improve Existing Videoconferencing Deployments- While the DVE Huddle Room 70 comes bundled with the LifeSize Room system the solution is also an open platform for a variety of cameras and codecs and can improve the human factors of an existing SD or HD videoconferencing deployment by improving the end-user acceptance of the overall experience. The solution seems well-suited to videoconferencing managers looking to improve the usage of their existing videoconferencing investment without a greenfield upgrade.

Cost Effective - Almost 1/3 the cost of many of the leading telepresence group solutions with the ability to run on a single T1 and/or E1.

What I don't:

Small Capacity in Life-size- While the room can seat multiple participants the size of the remote primary participants must be reduced when you are seating more than 2-3 on the front row.

Telepresence@InfoComm - Best Bets!

Tomorrow we are off to Las Vegas and InfoComm. Please stop and say hello if you see me on the show floor! Here are some of our Telepresence "Best Bets" at the conference.

Howard Lichtman, President of the telepresence consultancy Human Productivity Lab will be attending InfoComm. If your organization is looking to do something cool with telepresence then please contact him at HSL@HumanProductivityLab.com with your interest.

The IMCCA's Telepresence@InfoComm Program on Thursday, June 19th in LVCC Room 219. Check out the full program Here.

Teliris will be holding a press conference to announce their 5th Generation Telepresence Platform on Wednesday, June 18th at 8:00 AM PST @ Booth No. C2438, keynoting the Telepresence@InfoComm Program, and hosting a private party in a secret locale high above the strip.

The HD Conferencing and Telepresence Showcase at InfoComm will be held the 18th, 19th, and 20th in the Central Hall 3, Booth C2976. View Demonstrations by Digital Video Enterprises, LifeSize Communications, Polycom, Telanetix, and TelePresence Tech.

Digital Video Enterprises will be launching two new Telepresence Systems at InfoComm. The DVE Huddle 70 and the DVE Telepresence Stage. You will be able to find them in the HD Conferencing and Telepresence Showcase in the Central Hall 3, Booth C2976

Glowpoint will be representing their new Telepresence Exchange Network, premiering a schweet new video, and hosting a fly private party.

Polycom will be announcing a number of new telepresence offerings and a new and improved TPX 306. You can also find them in the HD Conferencing and Telepresence Showcase in the Central Hall 3, Booth C2976 and in booth # N6019. Get a preview here.

Telepresence Tech will be showcasing their new TPT Room System at InfoComm and keynoting the IMCCA's Telepresence@InfoComm program. You will also be able to find them in the HD Conferencing and Telepresence Showcase in the Central Hall 3, Booth C2976

The Telepresence Options Interview - Chris Carr on MASERGY's New Video Extranet PLUS Telepresence @ InfoComm

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 06:59:29 -0500

High performance IP network provider MASERGY yesterday announced a solution for securely connecting telepresence and videoconferencing endpoints on disparate IP Networks. Telepresence Options Publisher Howard Lichtman, sat down with Chris Carr, Director of Video Markets at MASERGY to get the scoop.

Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis

Our regular readers know that we are big fans of inter-company telepresence (and inter-company videoconferencing) I.E. the ability to connect to vendors, joint venture partners, and most importantly, customers around the globe. Inter-company telepresence dramatically improves the utility of having telepresence and videoconferencing.

One of the biggest problems conferencing with stakeholders outside of the enterprise has been the problem of connecting telepresence/videoconferencing systems on disparate networks without incurring the packet-loss, latency, and jitter that destroys the crystal clear images that provide an 'experience'. There are also problems with getting video traffic through corporate firewalls and having a common "phone book" where you easily find and call a telepresence system on another network.

MASERGY has addressed the problem of connecting disparate networks, addresses many of the security issues, and is working with the telepresence and videoconferencing vendors on the "phone book". The company seems well positioned as soaring oil prices continue to destroy commercial aviation and the importance of having an alternative strategy for effectively doing business globally becomes evident.

Since MASERGY has been delivering true QoS for video since the beginning they have connections with many of the world's premiere managed service providers and systems integrators of telepresence and traditional videoconferencing including WireOne (Now part of BT Conferencing), VSGi, York Telecom, Glowpoint, GBH, Omnipresence, ACT Teleconferencing, Providea and Conference Plus to name just a few.

Other Inter-company Telepresence / Videoconferencing Networking Plays

AT&T's Inter-company Cisco TelePresence
BT Conferencing's Coming Inter-company Cisco TelePresence (Sept 08)
Glowpoint's Telepresence Exchange Network
Virtela's Secure Video Extranet

Other:

Telepresence People

Jeff Prestel , formerly Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing at Wire One, has been appointed as the General Manager of the BT Conferencing Video Business Unit

David Danto has joined JPMorgan Chase as Vice President, Director of Multimedia Engineering. He is retaining his position as the Director of Emerging Technology for the IMCCA

John Dumbleton has joined MASERGY Communications as Senior Vice President of Business Development

Telepresence @ InfoComm
Telepresence is going to be on the agenda at the upcoming InfoComm 2008 Conference and Exhibition next week at the Las Vegas Convention Center June 14th-20th. Expect major telepresence announcements from Digital Video Enterprises, Polycom, and Teliris.

Best Bets@ InfoComm:

Howard Lichtman, President of the telepresence consultancy Human Productivity Lab will be attending InfoComm. If your organization is looking to do something cool with telepresence then please contact him at HSL@HumanProductivityLab.com with your interest.

The IMCCA's Telepresence@InfoComm Program on Thursday, June 19th in LVCC Room 219. Check out the full program Here.

Teliris will be holding a press conference to announce their 5th Generation Telepresence Platform on Wednesday, June 18th at 8:00 AM PST @ Booth No. C2438, keynoting the Telepresence@InfoComm Program, and hosting a private party in a secret locale high above the strip.

The HD Conferencing and Telepresence Showcase at InfoComm will be held the 18th, 19th, and 20th in the Central Hall 3, Booth C2976. View Demonstrations by Digital Video Enterprises, LifeSize Communications, Polycom, Telanetix, and TelePresence Tech.

Digital Video Enterprises will be launching two new Telepresence Systems at InfoComm. You will be able to find them in the HD Conferencing and Telepresence Showcase in the Central Hall 3, Booth C2976

Glowpoint will be representing their new Telepresence Exchange Network, premiering a schweet new video, and hosting a fly private party.

Polycom will be announcing a number of new telepresence offerings and a new and improved TPX 306. You can also find them in the HD Conferencing and Telepresence Showcase in the Central Hall 3, Booth C2976 and in booth # N6019. Get a preview here.

Telepresence Tech will be showcasing their new TPT Room System at InfoComm and keynoting the IMCCA's Telepresence@InfoComm program. You will also be able to find them in the HD Conferencing and Telepresence Showcase in the Central Hall 3, Booth C2976

The Crash of Commercial Aviation Continues
Last week we updated the HPL Timeline of Airlines Bankruptcies, Mergers, Acquisitions, and Fiascoes. The death of the dollar is causing the price of oil to skyrocket which is destroying commercial aviation. The IATA announced last week that in the past 6 months twenty-four (24) airlines have gone out of business and the head of EasyJet in Germany predicted that high fuel prices could bankrupt up to 50 more leaving just 5 major carriers in Europe. Got Telepresence?

Telepresence Options and Human Productivity Lab Website Traffic Through The Roof!!

Our YouTube Channel has gone over 1,000,000+ views of our posted content and almost 200 subscribers.

When we first started covering the telepresence industry in 2005 we were only publishing on www.HumanProductivityLab.com. Even though, according to Alexa, our site has been the #1 site covering telepresence and effective visual collaboration since its inception, the Lab's website was never able to break into the top 10 search results for the search term "Telepresence".

Why? Because Google ranks having the search term in the URL very highly so we have been relegated to the 5th page of search results. It is a mistake we did not make again when we officially launched the Telepresence Options' website 8 months ago. Since then Telepresence Options has been steadily climbing the charts and just two short weeks ago hit the front page of Google for the term "Telepresence". We are currently the 4th result and headed for #1! Watch out Cisco... Here we come! :-)

Telepresence Inches Towards Interoperability

Wed, 07 May 2008 15:40:19 -0500

By Dawn Bushaus, Telephony Magazine

So far, most telepresence vendors have been myopically focused on getting their proprietary systems into the hands of customers, but service providers caution that they need to start thinking now about how to interconnect their systems in order to avoid islands of technology that can't be bridged.

"Right now vendors are only worried about their own piece of market share," said Michael Brandofino, president and CEO of Glowpoint, a video managed service provider. "I've had this [interoperability] conversation with Cisco and HP and they've said, "We don't care right now; we'll deal with it later'," he said. "That's fine, but in the video space, we've already had so many starts and stops, the reputation of the technology is at risk."

For their part, Cisco Systems and Hewlett Packard, two of the most prominent telepresence vendors, say they are thinking about interoperability. HP, for example, has been working with videoconferencing vendor Tandberg to make the HP Halo telepresence system backward compatible with existing videoconferencing deployments. "The introduction of our gateway in the fourth quarter of 2007 was an acknowledgment that customers have an investment in standards-based videoconferencing," said Darren Podrabsky, marketing manager for HP Halo.

Continue Reading at Telephony Magazine Online:
http://telephonyonline.com/broadband/news/telepresence-interconnect-interoperability-0430/

AT&T Rolls out Intercompany TelePresence, Cisco hits 500 systems sold with Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:44:01 -0500

Cisco, AT&T Look To Expand High-End Video-Conference System

By Roger Cheng, Dow Jones

NEW YORK - AT&T Inc. (T) will partner with Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) to manage Cisco's souped-up video-conferencing system, as the two hope to expand its appeal beyond a niche group.

'It's Cisco's version of a technology that is called "telepresence" because its large high-definition TV screens and custom set-up simulate a face-to-face meeting. Cisco likes it because it can also sell more networking gear to support it. AT&T, meanwhile, is attracted to telepresence because it requires another service that locks in their business customers.

"It does look like we're finally getting to the point where video-conferencing is able to deliver what it promised," said Jan Dawson, an analyst at research firm Ovum, adding that it allows both companies to increase the number of potential customers.

San Jose-based Cisco said it has received its order for its 500th telepresence room, and has a total of 750 rooms out there, including the ones within Cisco itself and those given away. Still, the average price tag of around $200,000 per room and the relative lack of other rooms to communicate with have been tough barriers to overcome.

Enter AT&T. For a customer, the San Antonio telecommunications company will provide the Cisco telepresence equipment and run the service for companies for a lower monthly fee, shouldering the upfront costs and maintenance. The company declined to comment on pricing, saying the figures varied widely depending on the deployment.

More importantly, the carrier will allow every Cisco telepresence room to connect with each other, even if AT&T isn't running the service. Previously, telepresence rooms could only communicate within a company, and couldn't reach out to others.

"Inter-company is the operative word," said Joe Lueckenhoff, senior vice president of product management for AT&T. "It allows companies to talk between themselves now."

It's a big move for Cisco's telepresence product, which played a large part in the networking titan's bid to resonate more with consumers. Its telepresence room was featured on such TV shows as "24."

While still a niche business, telepresence represents Cisco's fastest-growing business ever in emerging technology, according to Marthin De Beer, senior vice president of the emerging tech group.

It's estimated that by 2011 the installed base of video-conferencing rooms will be 144,000, according to Dawson. In comparison, the number of desktop units - using Web cams and existing monitors - will reach 1.5 million, he said.

AT&T hopes to grow the business further by pushing the service onto its own suppliers and customers, increasing the base and inducing a viral interest in telepresence.

"We think by talking to the ecosystem, we can expand the market exponentially," Lueckenhoff said.

The HP Halo Meeting Room Group Telepresence System

Cisco isn't the only company pushing telepresence. Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) offers HALO, the highest-end product; Telanetix Inc. (TNXI) has a cheaper offering. Cisco also plans to roll out a lower-end version to target small and medium businesses.

Eventually, De Beers said, he would like to see all systems work together to further broaden the number of telepresence endpoints.

"It's to everyone's benefit to make all systems communicate," he said. "We realize that even though we would like to, we won't be the sole choice of all customers."

At least Cisco has AT&T. The carrier has 10 telepresence rooms set up. "I don't fly to San Antonio nearly as much anymore," said Lueckenhoff, who is based in New Jersey.

[via CNNMoney]

Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis

I can remember back in late 2006 shortly after Cisco launched their telepresence offering to much fanfare and media attention I would somewhat frequently get some version of the following question: "So... Is this telepresence thing real?" A year and a half later TelePresence is Cisco's "fastest growing business ever in emerging technology." 500 systems sold worth conservatively between $120 - $150 million + tens of millions more (SWAG) in networking gear for both enterprise customers and carrier partners. This includes Cisco TelePresence MultiPoint Switches, core routers, edge routers, customer premise routers, LAN switches, etc.

The Cisco TelePresence eco-system is profiting as well. First, the network and managed service partners who provide bandwidth, help desk, and/or managed telepresence gear are celebrating: This includes carriers such as AT&T, BT Conferencing, Glowpoint, MASERGY, Verizon Business, and WireOne. The carriers are upgrading/building out true QoS networks for telepresence customers that represent high-dollar recurring revenue (which Wall Street loves) from global Fortune 5000 customers. Second, the Cisco resellers and channel partners such as Dimension Data, Presidio, BT Conferencing, and Nexus are celebrating. These companies are reselling TelePresence gear, architecting networks, and installing systems for enterprise clients. Finally, the traditional videoconferencing companies like HaiVision, Polycom, Tandberg, and Vidyo are celebrating because the tremendous buzz generated by Cisco TelePresence is driving "tire kickers" into the showroom to check out "telepresence" who end up driving off with a traditional HD videoconferencing systems (or their telepresence offerings).

Thoughts on AT&T

I haven't really spoken with AT&T yet so I really only have part of the story but right out of the gate they seem to be on the right track with the first Cisco inter-company telepresence offering. It is no secret that the Lab is a big fan of inter-company telepresence. In fact I think we probably coined the term "inter-company telepresence" in our 2006 paper and earlier writings on the subject. For the uninitiated inter-company telepresence is the ability to connect a telepresence system to another telepresence systems not on your corporate network so you can do business with joint venture partners, vendors, and customers.

Being connected to your key stake-holders dramatically improves the utility of telepresence which increases the adoption and usage in a "virtuous cycle" I.E. as more and more organizations can be reached over inter-company telepresence networks it improves the business case to buy telepresence so more companies do which then improves the business case to buy telepresence which... You get the idea.

So AT&T getting into the game is a big deal... The company runs one of the largest IP networks in the world, has a tremendous installed base of global Fortune 5000 customers and fields one of the largest sales organizations in the world. If the company really gets behind telepresence ... watch out...

AT&T's Global IP Network

Worldwide global network reach with 535,000 route miles

Network availability of up to 99.999%

Average 13% or better latency compared to key competitors, near-perfect packet delivery

Dedicated access to MPLS services from more than 1,600 service nodes in 137 countries

143,000 routes and over 960,000 ports manages for customers

Over 117,000 MPLS customer ports

8.52 petabytes of data traffic handled on average day

30 Global Internet Data Centers

Remote access from over 45,000 points in 149 countries

4 million users of remote access client software

Telepresence People

Aaron Roe has joined Nortel Multimedia Services

Rose Klimovich has joined telx as Vice President of Product Development

Libby Brennan has retired from AT&T

Michele Damerau has joined Cisco as Product Manager Remote Operations Services

Telepresence Industry Professionals - Our industry association on Linked In for professionals from the telepresence industry now has over 115 members!
I wanted to throw out a hearty: Welcome to TIP! to some friends, colleagues, and notables:

Jonathan Brust - Vice President Marketing and Business Development @ Glowpoint, Mark Casey - President of CFN Services, Jody Thomas - President @ Emergent, Manny Francisco - Senior Technologist @ DreamWorks, Thomas Jackson - CEO Mission Benefits/Former CEO TeleSuite, Duffie White - Founder and CEO @ Telepresence Tech, Peter Brockmann President of Brockmann & Company, Dan Lejeskar - Chairman & Co-founder of EON Reality, Steve Huey - Partner, Allen Austin , Dominic Dodd - Principal Analyst @ Frost & Sullivan, Chris Carr- Director of Video Markets @ MASERGY, Rob Hughes, Senior Vice President - Worldwide Sales & Support @ Vidyo, Bob LeBlanc - VP Strategic Alliances @ Savvis, Jim Oldham - VP of Sales - Teliris, Larry Stone - Senior Multimedia Collaboration Engineer @ Google, Kirk Topits - Product Manager @ Cisco TelePresence, Chris Otten - Business Unit Manager @ ROSCOR, William Guyton - President, Business Arts and Sciences, Ed Kohler - Producer & Talent - TechnologyEvangelist.com, Marshall Eubanks CEO of America Free TV / CTO Iformata, Christine Perey - President, Perey Research & Consulting, Mike Guerrero - Director of Sales - HaiVision, Rich Tribino - Regional Sales Director - Savvis, Jeff Fleisher - Wholesale Account Exec @ XO Communications, Rusty Scott - DSP Pro, Christine Kelly - Business Development Pro, Irv Rodrigues - President, Avalon Technology, Kirk Muffley - Director of Conferencing, The Whitlock Group, Scott Lee - Vice President - Strategic Partners @ Teliris, Seth Borus - Sales Ronin, Brian Thornton - Consulting Engineer @ Savvis, Brad Allen - Senior Experience Design Manager @ HP Halo Collaboration Solutions, David Stern - Global Services Product Leader - Video & Rich Media Communications @ IBM Global Technology Services, April Slayden Mitchell - Research Engineer @ HP Labs, Mike Reetz - Vice President of Technology @ WireOne, Martin Monson - Vice President of Sales @ Glowpoint, Eamonn Shaw - Interaction Designer R&D @ TANDBERG, Mat Hans - Director @ Motorola Labs, Deb Hesse - Information Technology Manager @ Intel, Wayne "Lumpy" Ordakowski - President , LII Inc.

Are you a Telepresence Industry Professional that is interested in joining? If you are a member of Linked In then hit this link : http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/76977/3745DE1F46C0 then drop me an e-mail at HSL@HumanProductivityLab.com to approve your membership. Include your snail mail address and I will send you a complimentary copy of the Telepresence Options 2008 Yearbook when released.

Telepresence: Ready for its close-up - A Telephony Magazine Cover Story

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:34:59 -0500

By Dawn Bushaus
Telephony Magazine

Late arrivals and missed connections could be a thing of the past if telepresence continues to gain popularity among high-flying executives

Marthin De Beer, the senior executive in charge of Cisco Systems' telepresence video technology, may have overlooked one tiny detail when he decided in 2006 to drink the company Kool-Aid and begin meeting whenever possible with colleagues and customers via telepresence, the next generation of high-definition videoconferencing.

Late last year, it began to occur to De Beer, who has racked up 2 million frequent-flyer miles on American Airlines, that he might have to relinquish his coveted Platinum Member status with the airline because he had managed to reduce his travel by two-thirds in 2007.

"Back in December I looked at my wife and I said, 'Honey, you know what, we're going to lose our platinum status this year.' I hadn't thought about this, but the upgrades won't be as easy now," De Beer said with a laugh. Sure enough, a week later he received a letter from American informing him that, indeed, he had not traveled enough miles in 2007; however, he was being granted Platinum Member status for life because of the 2 million miles he had already banked. Thank goodness for small mercies.

De Beer, senior vice president of Cisco's emerging technology group, and the rest of Cisco's management team, including Chairman and CEO John Chambers, are on a mission to make sure that they aren't the only corporate executives faced with losing preferred status on airlines. During the past year, Chambers and company have fast-tracked telepresence to the top of Cisco's priority list, upgrading the corporate backbone by 435% in the past nine months to accommodate traffic among more than 175 of its own telepresence rooms. "We now have OC-12 backbone connections between all of our major geographies," De Beer said. "That is purely driven by telepresence. At least 60% of our WAN traffic today is telepresence traffic."

Cisco's aggressive commitment to telepresence is one of the things breathing new life into videoconferencing, which has languished for years with a reputation for being clunky, unreliable and generally not as appealing to executives as global travel. The other major influence is the growing corporate concern over climate change. Airline travel has perhaps the fattest global footprint on the planet - a round-trip flight from Chicago to London releases 1.459 tons of carbon dioxide gas into the upper atmosphere, per passenger.

"There is a global focus on corporate social responsibility," said Steve Masters, head of global convergence propositions for BT. "The arguments of the past about executives enjoying international travel are wearing thin. What we are seeing is a massive mind-set change that starts at the top. I don't know any large corporate customer who isn't concerned about this."

The availability of relatively cheap bandwidth, the need to reduce travel costs and increase productivity, the more global economy, security concerns, and even the hassle that much commercial air travel has become also are factors in an increased interest in travel alternatives.

The companies that may stand to gain from this renewed interest in video communications are network operators and service providers because telepresence promises not only to drive bandwidth sales, but also to open a new market for managed services that can be wrapped around the technology.

"This is really a big opportunity for the service providers," said Dominic Dodd, principal analyst of conferencing and collaboration for Europe with Frost & Sullivan. "Telepresence is the classic killer application in terms of its ability to use the network."

Last year Frost & Sullivan projected that the global market for telepresence would hit $145 million, up from just $55 million in 2006. The company also projected a $1.3 billion market for products and services by 2013. "This year I'm even more bullish about the demand and uptake," Dodd said, adding that Frost & Sullivan will issue its new forecast within the next few months.

Cisco's own projections are more aggressive. The company expects the industry to realize $4 billion in revenue for telepresence network services alone between 2007 and 2010. The company believes telepresence will fundamentally change how companies communicate.

"Our legacy videoconferencing equipment was utilized about 6% of the time, whereas with telepresence, we're at a 65% average - and that's just for internal use," De Beer said. "Once you can start using this to connect with customers, partners and suppliers, we think the utilization will jump to close to 100%."

Telepresence is different from traditional videoconferencing, and even high-definition (HD) videoconferencing, because it gives users the illusion that they are meeting together in the same room. "The experience is immersive, not observant," said Howard Lichtman, president of Human Productivity Lab, a research and consulting company dedicated to telepresence.

Telepresence systems typically consist of multiple 50-inch plasma screens, which allow for the display of life-size images. In addition, cameras are carefully positioned to achieve the approximation of eye contact, and audio systems provide for surround sound. Finally, all of the technology is hidden so that the room appears to be a typical conference room. Some telepresence meeting participants have reported experiences so lifelike that they have tried to extend a hand for a handshake at the end of a meeting only to remember that they are not, in fact, in the same room.

Besides improving the quality of the visual experience, telepresence also is easier to use than traditional video systems. Most telepresence systems are designed to make initiating a conference as easy as dialing a phone. A managed service can take the headaches away entirely by providing a concierge service that lets users simply make reservations for a telepresence session.

Telepresence also allows for better collaboration opportunities than traditional videoconferencing. Telepresence rooms provide additional screens displayed above or below the plasma row or configured as pop-up screens on the conference table. To share documents or link to the Internet during a telepresence call, users just plug a laptop into a connection at the conference table.

Telepresence technology isn't new. Back in the mid-1990s, TeleSuite, which became Destiny Conferencing and was purchased in 2005 by videoconferencing heavyweight Polycom, came up with the idea. But it was another vendor, Teliris, that launched the first commercial service in 2001. In 2005, HP gave the market a boost with the launch of its Halo service, which originally was designed in conjunction with Dreamworks for Hollywood execs to use in filmmaking. It was HP's entry into the market that caused Cisco to sit up and take notice of the technology's potential.

Today industry-watchers view Cisco, HP, Polycom, Teliris and videoconferencing vendor Tandberg as the top telepresence technology competitors. All of the vendors' high-end products include an entire room installation that amounts to screens, codecs, cameras, microphones, sound systems, furniture and in some cases walls. HP and Teliris also require customers to buy managed services on their private networks, while Cisco, Polycom and Tandberg partner with network operators and managed service providers (MSPs). Analysts also are watching LifeSize and Telanetix, which have entered the market with lower-cost products aimed at getting telepresence to the masses. Their solutions aren't as all-encompassing, allowing the customer to design and furnish the room.

Despite the entry of companies such as LifeSize and Telanetix, telepresence technology so far has been aimed almost exclusively at C-level executives within the Fortune 500, and for good reason: The technology is downright expensive. A typical room installation costs about $250,000, and that doesn't include the network charges for a service that is a true bandwidth hog. HP, for example, requires a DS-3 connection for every room with a monthly price tag of $18,000 per site.

"This is technology for the country club jet set," said Ira Weinstein, senior analyst and partner for Wainhouse Research, a research and consulting company focused on unified communications.

Robin Gareiss, executive vice president and senior founding partner of Nemertes Research, an independent research firm that specializes in quantifying the business impact of technology, agreed. "I hesitate to call it the killer application for the network until the prices come down," she said.

But the fact that the technology is aimed at the corporate elite makes it a perfect candidate for managed services, Weinstein said: "Managed telepresence services provide massive value because for these kinds of sessions, it has to be perfect." In other words, CEOs are not forgiving when the technology doesn't work.

Managed services can make the telepresence experience nearly fool-proof by handling everything from designing
the room and installing the gear to contracting for network services and providing concierge services to set up a company's individual telepresence sessions and monitor them for problems.

While Wainhouse Research stops short of including a managed service in the definition of telepresence, Frost & Sullivan's Dodd argues that it is the managed services wrapper that makes telepresence different from videoconferencing and gives it more of a chance for long-term success.

Overall, the goal is for CEOs to get so comfortable with telepresence that they become anxious to find ways to push the technology down to the masses. Dodd, Gareiss and Weinstein agree that telepresence adoption will drive additional corporate spending on HD and even standard-definition conferencing systems.

Companies providing managed telepresence services range from the vendors themselves (HP and Teliris) to large network operators such as BT and specialty service providers such as Nortel Global Services and iFormata, a spin-off of Destiny Conferencing.

HP and Teliris require customers to purchase managed services in conjunction with the equipment because they believe the service element is crucial for ease of use and for interconnecting companies in business-to-business applications. To ensure quality, HP insists that every telepresence connection on its network be a dedicated DS-3 circuit, whereas most vendors and many service providers believe that MPLS with quality of service (QOS) parameters is sufficient for the telepresence experience, allowing customers to get the most out of their existing network facilities.

"MPLS works well for data, but not for video," said Mark Gorzynski, Halo chief for HP. "It's a wonderful technology, but when you need low packet loss, it has a bit of a problem. If we could save money by using MPLS, we would."

Not surprisingly, the folks at Cisco disagree with Gorzynski, and so does Simon Farr, head of marketing convergence for BT Global Services. BT has been using MPLS to deliver a Cisco TelePresence service for about a year. "We've actually engineered a class of service into our MPLS backbone at the access level that is there specifically for Cisco TelePresence," Farr said. "We can guarantee the application performance end to end."

Other network operators such as AT&T, Orange Business Services, Sprint, Telus and Verizon Business also are working with Cisco on telepresence services, although not all of the companies are providing managed services yet. Verizon Business, for example, resells and installs the Cisco TelePresence gear and provides network connectivity but leaves management up to the customer.

"We're looking at whether customers need us to help manage it," said Roberta Mackintosh, executive director of product marketing for Verizon Business. "Right now it's a toss up as to whether they want that."

Nemertes' Gareiss said her research shows room for both a managed services and company-owned approach to

telepresence. "If a company has an MPLS network up and running and has some significant capacity, they can carve out bandwidth at a top QOS level and run telepresence over the network," she said. "Other companies decide that because telepresence is such a bandwidth-intensive application and because they don't want to risk something going wrong, they'll use a third party so that they can hold that third party liable. I really don't see one taking off over the other. They're both good options."

What may come before a managed service at Verizon Business is a service that links telepresence systems with traditional videoconferencing systems, Mackintosh said. "I think customers are going to want to connect with sites that don't have immersive solutions," she said.

Industry watchers agree that adoption of telepresence technology will cause a ripple effect because as a company's top executives become comfortable with the technology, they will want to extend it deeper into the organization. They won't want to spend $250,000 for every room, however, so they will turn to HD videoconferencing and even desktop conferencing for their employees.

BT has seen that happen already. While so far only BT's largest customers have been interested in telepresence, some of those companies are beginning to consider deploying Cisco's single-screen product at smaller locations, Farr said. "That's pushing the units shipped from the tens to the hundreds," he said, "and it is a good indicator that organizations are understanding the capabilities that telepresence gives them."

Cisco has developed certification programs that its resellers and service provider partners must complete before they can resell the company's gear. The Cisco TelePresence Connection Certification is a rigorous testing procedure designed to ensure that a service provider meets certain standards for MPLS virtual private network architecture, service level agreements and management systems. Another service provider certification program will be added for network operators who want to offer a telepresence exchange service for business-to-business applications, De Beer says.

Analysts, vendors and service providers alike agree that allowing for business-to-business applications is crucial to the success of telepresence. HP and Teliris use their networks as a selling point for companies looking to interconnect with customers or suppliers. And that isn't lost on Cisco.

Cisco has been working with AT&T and BT on telepresence trials. "Some of our big customers like Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart are starting to make calls between locations in a trial mode," De Beer says. "The plan is to have a commercial intercompany telepresence service available by June that our enterprise customers can purchase from AT&T and BT."

Network operators aren't the only service providers who stand to gain if telepresence takes off. A group of MSPs focused on video communications also wants to carve out a piece of the telepresence pie for themselves.

Nortel Global Services is making a big push into managed telepresence services in the hopes that it might help turn things around for the struggling Nortel parent company, which recently posted a wider-than-expected loss and announced layoffs. Nortel Global Services resells Polycom and Tandberg telepresence systems today and manages them from a global network of eight video network operations centers (VNOCs).

Nortel is not building its own dedicated network like HP and Teliris, rather it will partner with network operators worldwide and focus on delivering concierge and management services, said Dietmar Wendt, president of Nortel Global Services. For example, Nortel is working on a deal now to private label a managed telepresence service with a network operator in Asia, he said.

Other MSPs to watch in the telepresence space include iFormata, Wire One Communications and York Telecom. Wire One and York Telecom are both videoconferencing MSPs that are moving upstream to tackle telepresence management, while iFormata has a long history in telepresence.

Founded by father-and-son team David and Scott Allen, who also founded TeleSuite, iFormata has VNOCs co-located in telco hotels in Ohio, Virginia and Norway with one under construction in India. Because of its history, iFormata has a strong partnership with Polycom, but the company also is working with Cisco to become certified to provide its products, said Scott Allen, CEO of iFormata. The company recently began offering intercompany connectivity among its customers, and Allen sees a lot of potential for business-to-business applications going forward. "I expect that service to be quite successful a year from now," he said.

Only time will tell whether telepresence technology can fulfill the decades-old promise of videoconferencing. But with heavyweights such as Cisco and HP putting money and marketing prowess behind the technology and large global corporations aggressively looking for ways to reduce their travel budgets and carbon footprints, it appears that video's stars might finally be aligned.

GOING GREEN SAVES GREEN

The promise of telepresence technology has the communications industry seeing green in more ways than one.

Of course, vendors and network operators are excited to see the greenbacks pouring in from the sale of bandwidth-intensive systems that cost upwards of a quarter-million dollars per location. But technology providers and their customers also are seeing a more altruistic shade of green: Telepresence technology can help companies save millions on travel, which translates to a worldwide reduction in carbon emissions.

Cisco Systems is not only selling telepresence systems, it's using them. In 2007, the company saved $70 million on travel-related expenses using telepresence, says Marthin De Beer, senior vice president of the company's emerging technology group. Cisco realized that savings despite the fact that it had to upgrade a big portion of its network backbone to OC-12.

"For us telepresence has had a nine- to 12-month [return on investment] per room," De Beer said. "That wouldn't have happened if we didn't see the kind of utilization we've seen. But this is making Cisco more green; it's using the network as a platform for communications, and it's making people a lot more productive."

Robin Gareiss, executive vice president and senior founding partner of Nemertes Research, an independent research firm that specializes in quantifying the business impact of technology, said some of her clients are seeing huge returns from implementing telepresence, even at a steeper price tag. "When telepresence first came out, a large financial services company we were working with installed 10 rooms at $500,000 each," Gareiss said. "They were able to see an ROI of less than a year just based on how much money their executive team was spending traveling globally."

Several vendors and some service providers have begun providing carbon footprint calculators to help customers figure out how much their travel savings can mean in terms of a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. Videoconferencing vendor Tandberg sponsors a Web site at www.seegreennow.com that offers such a calculator and outlines ideas for how to reduce emissions.

"Two years ago in the U.S., 'green' wasn't a discussion point," said Rick Snyder, president of the Americas for
Tandberg. "Today for any major U.S. company, green is a top-five concern in choosing
products."

Some European countries have enacted strict carbon-emission regulations, so the idea of using technology to reduce the carbon footprint there isn't new. Many companies now participate in carbon reduction networks, which allow them to "sell" their carbon savings to companies that need to post reductions.

BT has begun a consulting practice devoted to helping companies determine how they can reduce carbon emissions through a variety of measures, including using conferencing services and reducing energy consumption in data centers. The telco has reduced its own carbon emissions in the U.K. by 60% since 1996, said Kevin Moss, head of corporate responsibility operations for BT. "We feel very strongly that the carbon footprint reduction we've achieved has been important for improving shareholder stakes as well," Moss said.

MANY VENDORS, MANY OPTIONS

Cisco has been a large part of the reason telepresence has garnered attention, based on its brand and marketing prowess. To avoid stepping on its service provider customers' toes, Cisco has opted not to build a managed service, relying instead on deals with network operators and MSPs. Analysts agree that Cisco needs to expand its product line to reach beyond the C-level of most corporations.

HP worked with Dreamworks to create Halo after the Sept. 11 attacks as a way for filmmakers to avoid travel. HP launched Halo as a fully managed service in 2005. HP owns its own network, which means Halo customers can interconnect with each other for business-to-business applications. Halo is arguably the most expensive among the telepresence solutions, but analysts say it provides one of the best experiences.

Polycom bought telepresence technology in 2005 with its acquisition of Destiny Conferencing. The RPX product line is unique in that it is a pre-fabricated room complete with screens, furniture, lighting, walls, floor and ceiling - all installed in an existing conference space. In addition to the telepresence product line, the company offers a wide range of HD and SD conferencing solutions down to the desktop. Polycom's go-to-market strategy is to work with a wide range of resellers and service providers. Its alliance with Nortel helps it compete head to head with Cisco.

Tandberg, like Polycom, has a history as a videoconferencing vendor. The company's MXP product line provides comparable HD videoconferencing at a much lower price than telepresence systems. Tandberg also focuses heavily on standards so that its equipment can interoperate with other standards-based gear. Tandberg is even working with rival HP to make its Halo solution interoperate with traditional video systems.

LifeSize was founded by former Polycom executives and now is moving up-market with its telepresence offering. The company is trying to deliver a customizable, lower-cost solution, which is why it does not include furniture or screens with the system. LifeSize also manufactures its own codec, which makes its approach less expensive. Analysts like the company's product and its minimalist approach because it offers an alternative for businesses that can't afford pricey telepresence suites. But they caution that the overall experience can vary widely without strict design guidelines.

Telanetix, like Lifesize, offers a lower-cost solution. Its gear uses the company's own software-based codecs, which help keep costs down. It also offers a telepresence kit for $45,000 that does not include screens. As with LifeSize, analysts like Telanetix's "roll-your-own" approach, but worry about the quality of experience.

Teliris, which launched its service back in 2001, is a telepresence veteran. Like HP, it provides a fully managed service over a privately owned network. Analysts say the Teliris experience is good because camera positioning provides approximation of eye contact. The company also gets high marks for the way it interconnects multiple sites in a conference. The biggest challenge for Teliris lies in getting noticed while bigger competitors pull out the stops to make sure they own the market.

[via Telephony Online]

Telepresence Briefs

Last week the Lab launched a networking group for Telepresence Industry Professionals on the business networking site: Linked In.

The goal of this group is to help members:

Reach other members of Telepresence Professionals

Accelerate careers/business through referrals from Telepresence Professionals Group members

Know more than a name - view rich professional profiles from fellow Telepresence Professionals Group members

If you are already "Linked In" then you can join by hitting this link:
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/76977/3745DE1F46C0

Our friends at the IMCCA launched a similar group today but for the record we are the original!