Human Productivity Lab - Telepresence News Content Channel

Researchers Want to Add Touch, Taste and Smell to Virtual Reality

HSL — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:13:53 -0500

A group of British researchers have developed a design for a virtual "cocoon" that will provide a virtual sensory experience that will include not only sight and hearing but smell, taste, and touch. The researchers have dubbed their effort: "Real Virtuality". PLUS: Telepresence People ~ HSL

By Alexis Madrigal

Virtual reality schemes have long tantalized geeks with unrealized visions of holodecks and long-distance cybersex.

Now, a group of British researchers want to round out the experience with virtual touch, taste and smell. To simulate the real world, they argue, all five of your senses must be stimulated. Toward that end, they've mocked up a "Virtual Cocoon" with a separate glove that -- at least in theory -- could tickle your tongue as it, uh, nukes your nose.

To differentiate themselves from virtual reality schemes that have come and gone, the researchers are re-branding their effort as "real virtuality."

"The crucial thing for 'real virtuality' is that it will hit all five senses in a highly realistic manner," said Alan Chalmers, a professor at the University of Warwick Digital Lab. "You can't ignore the crossmodal effect. We need to have smell, we need to have taste."

Virtual reality has been long on promise and short on delivery for more than two decades. Way back in the second issue of Wired magazine in 1993, we delivered a massive story on Jaron Lanier's virtual reality dreams. Though computing power has continued its exponential rise over the last 16 years, virtual reality feels little more "real" than it once did. Certainly, no one would mistake Second Life for real life or a virtual reality "CAVE" used in oil exploration for the geological formations themselves. Even with huge improvements in graphics, virtual reality has remained more virtual than real.

Chalmers and his collaborator, David Howard, head of the Audio Laboratory at the University of York, could be onto something with their multi-sensory approach, even if it is a daunting task. What gives them hope is that the simulations of every sense don't need to be perfect, they just need to work -- and work well together.

Drawing on cognitive neuroscience literature about how the brain prioritizes sensory inputs, they can deliver the right level of detail with maximum engineering efficiency. Cognitive neuroscientists call these crossmodal attention affects. For example, when you pay close attention to one thing -- say someone's voice on the telephone -- you pay less attention to your peripheral vision. Using that information could allow the researchers to build a VR system that functions with far less brute force than you might think was necessary -- stimulating one or two senses at a time, rather than all of them at once. Howard compared it to the way the JPG format compresses image files.

"The amount of brain power given to sight, once sound, smell and touch are introduced, reduces dramatically. For instance, when you are driving around looking for a road sign you will probably turn down the volume on your car stereo," Chalmers explains on his website. "This is because you need more brain power diverted to the sight sense. This means that, with other stimuli introduced to a virtual environment, we could reduce still further the amount of rendering needed."

The virtual reality helmet titillates all five body senses while viewers sit at home on their sofas

Or so they think. Right now, all the researchers have are a mockup and a research plan, plus enough funding from the U.K.'s Engineering and Physical Science Research Council to get started. Chalmers said it would take "on the order of millions of pounds" to deliver a working prototype in "three to five years."

They will face some daunting technological challenges, said Jane Mulligan, a virtual reality researcher at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The headset is being worked on by scientists at a number of British universities

"Visually, we'd say that our most advanced technology is the virtual worlds of games," Mulligan said. "But even those, it's difficult to make them compelling and like you're really there."

She pointed to haptics, the sense of physical presence, as the key stumbling block.

"Your sense of touch is extremely precise," she said. "Most people that I've talked to, people who do haptics, say that today's technology is not really there."

One area that sounds tricky is smell, but it might not be as tough as it seems. The biggest attempt to commercialize synthetic scent technology came from DigiScents, a high-profile startup that crashed during the dot-com bust. But the company's co-founder, John Bellenson, now CEO of Upstream Biosciences, said that his smell-o-matic technology worked.

"The technological limitations were not the limiting factors for us," Bellenson said. "We had a functional device that was able to make thousands of smells with a scent palette of 64 elements."

He blamed bad timing for his company's ultimate failure.

"Sony had warned us that we would need $100 million from beginning to end to create a new product category," he said. "We had raised about $25 million."

The final straw, as the market turned, were the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

"We narrowly missed being at the World Trade Center that day. We had accidentally canceled our appointment with Merrill Lynch," he recalled. "A month or two later, I was looking at our calendar, and saw we were supposed to be there. We said, 'Maybe this is a sign.'"

Although DigiScents' iSmell has entered the history books as a massive failure, earning a spot on PC World's Top 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time, Bellenson says that we should mark up digital scent technology as a missed opportunity, not a failed product.

"If we'd have started the company a year earlier, we would have raised all the money we needed," Bellenson sighed.

In fact, the British researchers see clear paths to most of the technologies they need.

"The sight and sound, we pretty well know how to do that," Howard said. "The smell, we have an idea of how to do it."

Taste, they say, is generated largely through the sense of smell, but they are considering a mouthpiece that could simulate different textures of things that you're chewing on.

Put it all together and they think they can trick the brain into looking around, smelling the orange, feeling the tree's bark, hearing the birds and saying, "I'm in an orchard."

"If you start to join some of the dots with pieces of sensory information," Howard concluded, "The brain will suspend the belief of where it actually is."

Now all they need is money.

[via blog.wired.com and dailymail.uk.co]

Telepresence People

Teliris has appointed Rodney Rogers as Executive Chairman

Fran Shammo has been named President of Verizon Business

VCON and Presidio Videoconferencing Vet Jim Hallihan has joined TANDBERG as Federal Account Manager for Homeland Security. When I first began experimenting with and deploying videoconferencing in 2000, Jim Hallihan was my sales guy!

Verizon Business Partners Nortel Services to Offer Managed Telepresence Services with HPL President Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis

HSL — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:01:06 -0500

In November Nortel and Verizon Business announced that Nortel Global Services had been selected by Verizon to deliver a new telepresence managed services offering. The deal would combine Verizon Business' global IP network that spans 110 countries with Nortel's global network of eight Multimedia Network Operations Centers (MNOCs). Here is an article on the partnership from Anamika Singh from TMCnet with Human Productivity Lab President Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis.

Verizon Business Partners with Nortel Services to Offer Managed Telepresence Service

By Anamika Singh, TMCnet

Verizon Business has teamed up with Nortel to offer a managed Telepresence service for their enterprises.

Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allows a person to feel as if they were present at a location other than their true location. That means one can meet people without travel, thus saving time as well as money. The Telepresence service requires IP networks to transmit both image and voice in real time to give an "in-person" experience.

Through this partnership, the two companies will be able to leverage each others strength - expansive global private IP network of Verizon Business with Nortel managed Telepresence services.

Joel Hackney, president, Enterprise Solutions, Nortel stated, "The power of our joint telepresence solution with Verizon Business is of major value to customers. We're delivering the best possible user experience with an industry-unique model that supports standards-based telepresence, high definition, standard definition and desktop video conferencing platforms."

"This new Nortel based managed service addresses the growing demand for advanced video collaboration services among our multinational customers," said Nancy Gofus, senior vice president of global business products for Verizon.

"Combining Nortel's capabilities with the power of Verizon Private IP and leading video platforms enables us to deliver a high definition and high-performance meeting experience for our customers."

It brings significant improvement in people productivity, lowers operating cost and reduces environmental impact as well. Nortel estimates that a company spending as much as US$23 million annually on travel can use telepresence to recover as many as 385,000 hours of lost productivity, reduce its carbon footprint by up to 4,200 tons and save up to US$7 million.

The return on investment is quick too. Wachovia claimed to have saved $1.5 Million in T&E in a year and half on its investment of $1.5 million on Telepresence implementation.

The managed service ensures that complete set-up and management is taken care of including web-based reservations, pre-configured, pre-connected conferences, proactive testing, round-the-clock network performance monitoring, recording, on-demand playback and metrics reporting.

"Working with Verizon in this manner supports Nortel's goal to become the preferred partner in unifying all communications through leading products, software and services." Hackney concluded.

Anamika Singh is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Anamika's articles, please visit her columnist page.

[via TMCnet]

Human Productivity Lab President Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis

I have been meaning to post this article for a couple of weeks with my thoughts and analysis but have been covered up with a couple of consulting assignments, travel, and the start of the silly season. For those that missed the official announcement of Verizon and Nortel announcement you can find it here.

Verizon Business has partnered with Nortel to deliver telepresence managed services. This is a big announcement for a couple of reasons but primarily because, by my back of the napkin calculations, the Verizon/Nortel partnership potentially represents the largest salesforce incentivized to prospect for, identify, and hand-off/close telepresence managed services deals. I say "potentially" because even a partnership with the best of intentions can fail if the proper sales incentives, training, and procedures are not in place so we will have to wait and see if the companies get it right. Their closest competition would probably be AT&T which is a Cisco shop with a more limited portfolio and, as far as I can tell, less of a commitment to the space from a product strategy/product development roadmap. AT&T seems to be offering the basics but Nortel is developing some serious capabilities.

Nortel has been steadily investing in telepresence and hiring some heavy hitters. In the past year the company has brought on Phil Keenan, who was previously GM at Polycom, as VP Multimedia and Telepresence Services; John Lytle and Neil Suhre who were both co-founders at VSPAN (Acquired by WireOne who was acquired by BT Conferencing), Bob Henning from BT Conferencing, and Aaron Roe, who was VP of New Business Development at telepresence pioneers TeleSuite & Iformata. They join what was already an all-star line-up including GM Hugh McCullen and Chris Fidler (Martinez) led by Nortel's President of Global Services Dietmar Wendt who I have heard through the telepresence grapevine was the guy at Nortel who "Got It" and moved decisively into the space.

The strategy is paying off. The company has been winning major deals including managing telepresence and videoconferencing for Deloitte globally which was press released and I understand that they absolutely, positively have delivered a number of other big deals which have not yet been announced. My understanding is that they are also white labeling telepresence managed services for the international division of an global telecommunications carrier and a major telepresence and videoconferencing manufacturer.

And I haven't even really touched on the deal with Verizon yet... In addition to Verizon's global salesforce pushing Nortel's managed service offerings, the company should also have access to Verizon's global IP network to deliver services and their engineering resources to develop solutions especially in the area of inter-company telepresence / videoconferencing which I have long predicted will be the killer app for IP networking. This is where Verizon's bread get's buttered. There is simply no other application(s) with as much potential to fill up the pipes than telepresence and effective visual collaboration.

Here is my updated list of top 5 reasons that Telepresence is the Killer App for IP Networking which I originally published in an article entitled Arming Cisco's Commission Driven Mercenaries in August of 2006 :

Reason # 5 - No other widely applicable application uses as much bandwidth as telepresence/effective visual collaboration.
Individual corporate group systems average from 1.5MB-45MB per room, and an organization might have multiple rooms in a single facility. Telepresence executive and desktop solutions use between 384K and 1.54Mbps + to each desktop.

Reason # 4 - Telepresence demands quality ... not just quantity.
Because real-time video is delay-and-jitter intolerant, not just any old bandwidth will do. Telepresence requires true QoS at high bandwidths which is the most profitable and differentiated service the carriers sell.

Reason #3 - Telepresence is a big ticket application that requires a lot of networking gear.
Telepresence group systems and distance learning environments can run $50,000 - $500,000+ per room and include lots of IP gizmos: switches, premise routers, equipment racks, network drops at each position, and dozens of IP addressable devices from camera to codecs to audio mixers.The managed services and networks that support telepresence produce high-dollar recurring revenue from stable companies which is Wall Street's favorite kind of revenue.

Reason #2 - Telepresence has a strong hard/soft dollar ROI in avoided travel
For the majority of the Global Fortune 5000 with distributed workforces, Telepresence offers a one-year or less ROI in avoided travel, productivity, time-to-market advantage, and business effectiveness. Even better, the ROI of telepresence GROWS EXPONENTIALLY as other sites join effective visual collaboration networks and companies begin using their systems for Inter-company business with vendors, partners, and customers globally. This market will expand rapidly to smaller companies, SMEs, law firms, advertising agencies, consulting, public accountancy, etc. through public availability of telepresence environments and, ultimately, telepresence in the home.

Reason #1 - Telepresence and effective visual collaboration networks are primed to grow exponentially!
Right now there are less than 40 250 companies deploying less than ~~300~~ 2,000 telepresence group systems on a planet that has 700,000+ traditional videoconferencing endpoints that nobody likes and 25,000 executive aircraft that represent the next best alternative to effective face-to-face collaboration.

Here are some facts on Verizon's Global IP Network from the Verizon Website:

Global Network

Verizon owns and operates one of the most expansive IP backbone networks in the world.
The Verizon data network includes more than 446,000 route miles, including terrestrial and undersea cable, spanning six continents and access to another 187,000 route miles from Verizon Telecom.
Verizon Business provides voice, data and Internet services on its state-of-the-art fiber-optic network, reaching customers in more than 2,700 cities and 150 countries.
Verizon Business provides high-capacity connections to more than 120,000 buildings around the globe.
The Verizon network is large enough to circle the world 18 times.
With more than 1 Terabit of aggregated backbone capacity in North America, the Verizon network carries data traffic up to 10 Gbps in the United States and 2.5 Gbps in Europe.
Verizon Business currently operates eight satellite facilities located throughout the United States, Hawaii and Guam.
Verizon Business also operates satellite links to more than 200 teleports worldwide in approximately 110 countries, for both government and business customers.

Speeds

The Verizon network operates at speeds up to OC-192, the fastest available.
Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is deployed on the OC-192/OC-48 North American and European IP backbone networks to improve traffic engineering and management.

Next-Generation Submarine Cable Network System

Verizon Business carries IP, data and voice customer traffic on its global IP global network, including traffic on more than 65 submarine cable networks worldwide.
Verizon Business is the only U.S.-based provider to be a charter member of a new consortium building the Trans-Pacific Express (TPE) optical cable network system that, when completed in 2008, will link the United States. and the China mainland.
Verizon Business is the only U.S. consortium member of the SEA-ME-WE-4 undersea cable network system that spans 20,000 kilometers and reaches 14 countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Western Europe.
Verizon Business is the first to deploy undersea mesh technology - providing multiple diverse paths for voice and data traffic reliability - to connect three major submarine cable systems traversing the Atlantic Ocean. Verizon Business plans to offer the same mesh diversity for its Trans-Pacific customers.

Network Operations Centers

Verizon Business has five major global Network Operations Centers in the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Data Centers

Verizon Business supports more than 200 data centers in 22 countries across five continents.

Security Operations Centers

Verizon Business offers continuous security monitoring and management in 7 SOCs globally.

Enterprise Mobility

Verizon Business supports 1.7 million global dial modems connecting thousands of cities throughout the world.
Verizon Business offers a combination of IP dial, wireless and DSL access in more than 150 countries.
Verizon Business supports dial services for national, local or toll-free calls in many areas in over 150 countries around the world.

IP Leadership

Since research firm TeleGeography began tracking Internet backbone connectivity in 2001, the Verizon global IP network (formerly MCI) has ranked #1 as the most connected backbone each year (based on Autonomous System connections). This enables its business customers and ISPs to reach more destinations directly through its global IP backbone than any other carrier.
Verizon Business has a rich heritage developing the commercial Internet.

Global Customer Base

Verizon Business provides communications services for tens of thousands of businesses and government agencies around the globe, including a number of governmental agencies and 97 percent of the Fortune 500.
Verizon Business manages more than 3,600 networks in 149 countries, which includes overseeing 25,000+ non-Verizon Business connections from more than 60 network providers globally.
Verizon Business has a history of service and innovation in network management, recently exemplified by numerous awards and its patent-pending IMPACT Rapid Fault Isolation capabilities.

Customer Service

Verizon Business maintains a 24x7 global VPN Network Operations Center and regional operation centers providing escalation paths for all customer-facing local support staff.

Other:

Powwow Virtual Update

Ever since Cisco launched their publicly available telepresence initiative in October I have been getting a lot of calls inquiring about the Human Productivity Lab's business model for publicly available telepresence: Powwow Virtual. For those who are uninitiated with Powwow, the Human Producitivity Lab has a business model for multi-vendor publicly available telepresence conferencing centers that would double as showrooms for the enterprise sale of telepresence and videoconferencing solutions. As long term readers can attest we have been dead-on accurate with respect to how esentially the entire telepresence industry has developed and have been precient on the economy, the collapse of the airlines, the importance of inter-company telepresence, the growth of telepresence managed services, and publicly available telepresence. In short knowledge is specialized and we know what the future of publicly available telepresence is going to look like, we have the business model to capitalize on it, the technology roadmap to innovate where needed, designs for our own telepresence environments and "pro-modifications" to improve some of the existing solutions, we have a C-level team at arm's length ready to execute, relationships with essentially every major vendor and many of the "cool kids" who make this industry tick, and we have the largest audience in the world interested in telepresence to fill the seats and drive enterprise sales.

What we don't have is the bandwidth and the manpower to give our partnership and fundraising the effort it deserves. So I have decided to put the call out looking for a CEO or a partner that can help get us get Powwow off the ground.

Our ideal candidates:

CEO - A seasoned CEO from the visual communications or networking/managed services industry that is looking for the opportunity of a lifetime: A greenfield opportunity to revolutionize the way the world communicates globally in one of the few growth industrys that will thrive in a global economic depression. A big idea in a world of tiny incremental ideas. The right candidate will have a track record of success in raising investment and should be prepared to put some skin in the game. We estimate that it will take ~$30MM to do public availability right and build out enough locations/city pairs to prove the Reed's Law model of exponential growth. Serious inquires only!

Potential Partners/Investors:

The telepresence hardware vendors - Cisco, HP Halo, LifeSize Communications, Polycom, Tandberg, Telanetix, Teliris, etc. Public availability lowers the cost of sales, improves the utility of the offering, and establishes a global network of demonstration facilities that pay for themselves. For a more detailed treatment of the value to hardware vendors please review this article.

The telepresence network and managed service providers - AT&T, BT, Glowpoint, Iformata, MASERGY, Nortel Telepresence Services, Verizon Business, Wire One, They already possess 1/2 the equation: Much of the video network infrastructure, QoS IP network, scheduling tools, help desk, etc. needed to support a global network of publicly available telepresence conferencing centers. Who is interested in a global network of high-end sales centers for enterprise telepresence solutions that pay for themselves through rental income and dramatically improves the utility of your offering? Who wants to win and win big?

The Airlines - Are the airlines in the business of moving people around the globe in flying aluminum cylinders or in facilitating meetings and commerce? The airlines already have some of the best potential locations and owning the competition might keep them in business as a falling dollar (it'll be back in 3-6 months) and the declining global economy strain their existing business model of full planes and cheap flights.

The travel management companies - At one time the good folks at American Express Corporate Travel and Carson Wagonlit were both interested in the concept. If any of the big travel management companies could move a fraction of the meetings/flights they facilitate on a daily basis from physical travel to virtual travel they could keep a network of publicly available telepresence conferencing centers packed! It is a chance for them to keep doing what they are doing except with virtual travel they could own the "airplanes".

Private investors - This is a big idea in a world of tiny incremental ideas. This is an opportunity right for a visionary, deep pocketed technology investor. Calling Richard Branson, Paul Allen, Mark Cuban, Steve Jobs, etc.

A big franchise player - While it is important to build an initial number of centers (8-20+) in the right demographic locations to create a critical mass of the most profitable city pairs (I.E. NYC-LA, NYC-London, San Francisco - Tokyo, Seattle-San Francisco, etc.) filling in the rest could be a combination of company stores and franchise locations. Unlike a McDonalds where a new location in

So who out there wants to revolutionize the world?

Telepresence People

Kevin Kennedy has joined Avaya as President and CEO

Scott Wilcoxen has joined TANDBERG as Telepresence Solution Architect

Patrick Micalleff has been appointed the Australian and New Zealand country manager for LifeSize Communications

Bob Hennig has joined Nortel as Multimedia Services and Strategy Manager (months ago but I just found out today)

Shawn Deer has joined Video Guidance as Senior Account Manager

John Farr has joined Video Guidance as Lead Integration Specialist

Scott Swingle has joined Video Guidance as Conference Specialist

Telanetix Launches New I.C.E. Telepresence Product

HSL — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:22:35 -0500

Immersive Collaboration Environment" for Education Radically Enhances Corporate Training Productivity

Bellevue, WA -- Telanetix Inc. (OTCBB: TNXI), a leading IP solutions provider offering telepresence and digital phone services to business markets, today announced the launch of a new product for training facilities and large group telepresence sessions. Dubbed "I.C.E.", for "Immersive Collaboration Environment", the product supports an unlimited number of conference participants per site with a flexible room design.

A Telanetix "Conceptual Image" of an ICE Telepresence Group System... The artist forgot to "conceptualize" the bezels

Model Design: Complete Conference Room has an MSRP of $279,000

The I.C.E. product brings a fundamental change to the cost-effectiveness of virtual training. To achieve a similar installation, competitors require complex construction that takes months, and requires building permits and actual on-site construction. The I.C.E. product is assembled in 3-4 days at less than half the price of competitors' telepresence room construction. Competitors' telepresence rooms and equipment are priced at approximately $400,000 to $600,000, with annual maintenance fees adding another $150,000 per year. I.C.E. is offered at less than $300,000 and maintenance fees of less than $20,000, representing a savings of 30% to 50%, and a much more rapid deployment timeframe. Customers will save initially on purchase and installation, and on travel related training expenses such as airfare on an ongoing basis.

"With more than 35 airlines out of business so far in 2008 and another 30 in danger according to the head of a major European airline association, Telanetix seems well positioned as organizations look for cost-effective alternatives in managing their global operations," said Howard S. Lichtman, President of the telepresence consultancy Human Productivity Lab and Publisher of Telepresence Options.

"Especially in today's challenging economic environment, organizations need to implement new approaches to increase productivity while reducing costs, " explained Robert Leggio, General Manager of the Telanetix Video Business Unit. "Our new I.C.E. product allows managers to cut their training travel costs while retaining the productivity benefits of their training programs. Our competitors cannot offer this type of innovative solution, since they have limitations on the way their telepresence rooms can be deployed."

A Telanetix "Conceptual Image" of an ICE Telepresence Learning Environment... The artist forgot to "conceptualize" the bezels
Model Design: ICE 18 Person Classroom has an MSRP of $299,000

The I.C.E. product is available directly from Telanetix and Telanetix certified and authorized integrators and resellers and is available with installation, integration and consulting as required.

Telanetix offers its telepresence service to businesses in a variety of customizable formats, all of which deliver a superior value. For further information, contact Jeff Salzwedel with Salzwedel Financial Services at (503) 722-7300, jeff@sfcinc.com.

About Telanetix, Inc.

Telanetix is a leading communications solutions provider offering telepresence and voice over IP (VoIP) services to all business market segments. Telanetix solutions meet the real-world communications demands of its customers with an industry-leading value proposition. The company's telepresence offering, called Digital Presence™, creates fully immersive and interactive meeting environments that incorporate voice, video and data from multiple locations into a single environment. The company's Voice offerings, marketing under the "AccessLine" brand, give companies flexible calling solutions, a simpler installation experience, and a greater range of support options than traditional telecom providers. Additional information may be found at the Telanetix corporate website, www.telanetix.com

Holobama: 'Holograms' greet Election 2008

HSL — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:19:40 -0500

Tuesday's night Presidential election not only ushered in change for the executive office but also for election coverage. 2008 was the year to showcase your tech in TV land. Fox featured a hanging quadruple-display cube, MSNBC had their floating, digital election results map (made by Brainstorm) while ABC employed a series of advanced Perceptive Pixel touchscreens. Every network was dressed to the nines in their newest technological gadgetry but CNN stole the show with their now famous 'holograms'.

View the Effect here:

We say 'holograms' with the quotes for a reason. Contrary to what the companies involved with this production may want you to believe, those holograms were not actually in the studio with Wolf Blitzer - meaning they were not holograms at all. Jessica Yellin was superimposed on top of the regular video feed, which would disqualify this broadcast as having true telepresence qualities in the technical sense. On screen, it did appear as if the holograms were in the same studio, adding more fuel to the 'what-is-telepresence' debate. Interestingly, the feeds were apparently dumbed down to create an effect more similar to a science fiction movie viewers would be more comfortable with.

Regardless of their technical classification, CNN was touting their new 'holograms' throughout election night 2008. The holograms eventually found their way onto live TV twice, once in a report from Chicago by Jessica Yellin and lastly when Wolf Blitzer interviewed will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas. Both Jessica and will.i.am were beamed into the CNN studios, live, as if Blitzer was interviewing them in the actual New York studio. While the holograms looked a bit jerky, this was still a major development in the world of 3D.

The 'Transporter' Room - where the interviewee stands

The basics of the system don't sound all that space-age at first. A series of 44 HD cameras are laid out in a circular array that surrounds the interviewee in a booth of sorts. The cameras all shoot at various angles, completing a 3D composite image which makes up the hologram you saw. This, however, is only the tip of a technologically complex iceberg.

Wired was one of the first mainstream media outlets to report on the mechanics of this setup more fully. It appears that the system uses telemetry tracking software that VizRt supplied while their partner company SportVu kicked in 'video processing technology' to create the images. The interplay between all the systems is very sophisticated, as the image below would indicate.

A diagram of the CNN Hologram, backstage

The Viz IO calibration tool converts the live CNN studio camera feed positions into a map of 3D coordinates. This information gets beamed out to the remote CNN hologram rooms, with their 44 cameras, which then instantaneously choose which 2 of the 44 cameras in the remote location best sync with the live CNN studio feed. Exactly which two cameras get used dynamically shifts depending on the 3D coordinates the Viz IO feeds the remote studios, allowing both participants to move around fairly naturally.

After the remote images come back to the CNN headquarters, the Viz Engine plug-in (developed by SportVu) creates a fully 3D representation of whomever is in the remote 44 camera studio; in this case that was Jessica Yellin and will.i.am. After being processed further, the 3D image is thrown back to the CNN (in full HD mind you). In the mixing room, Jessica and will.i.am were united with Wolf's live camera feed, creating the effect you saw during election night. All of these steps are performed in well under one second to create an almost lossless live holographic feed.

Around the country, views were decidedly mixed. Some called it a 'cute trick,' 'a vaudeville act' while others claimed it was a 'cool technique'. The head of CNN's wizardry, senior vice president David Bohrman said about the hologram setup that he, "didn't want it to be the centerpiece of our coverage." He thought the technology would merely add to the broadcast, calling it "an ornament on our tree." To better understand where he was coming from with the technology, watch Wold Blitzer's interview with Bohrman.

Also remember that while this demonstration may have been the first use of 'holograms' on primetime TV, they have been used in other high profile engagements many times before.

Still, take nothing away from Bohrman and the CNN team. This was surely a technological achievement and a milestone in the long evolution of 3D technologies. Considering the VizRt technology was sending out 3D holograms in full HD in real time, it shouldn't be too long before this same technology finds its way into the world of telepresence. You may just see someone you didn't know the next time you stroll into the board room.

Additional Reading:

CNN beams in guests with new hologram technology [AP]
Beam me up, Wolf! CNN debuts election-night 'hologram' [CNN]
How the CNN Holographic Interview System Works [Gizmodo]

In Search of the Princess Leia Effect: The Future of 3D Telepresence

HSL — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:23:08 -0500

The iconic image from 'Star Wars' of the embattled Princess Leia sending out a flickering plea to 'Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi' kindled a fascination about how moving holograms might look. Companies are now locked into a battle to make the fantasy a reality.

By Juan-Pablo Conti

"Put the camera down or you're not getting anything tonight," Tom Cruise's character Chief Anderton is told by his ex-wife, as he gazes nostalgically at a 3D hologram of her that he made when they were together. It's the year 2054 and, the way Steven Spielberg sees the future in this scene from 'Minority Report', digital photos and 2D video clips are no longer used to store and play our personal multimedia files. The need for a flat display is gone, replaced by a 3D projection system, our loved ones suddenly walking into the room and staring us in the eyes. The sense of realism is such that Anderton feels he could touch his ex-wife.

Like many science-fiction concepts before and since, the famous 'hologram' scene from 'Star Wars' has prompted many attempts to build the real thing

The prediction appears to have been spot-on: we're getting this technology, and there's no need to wait until 2054 to experience it. In fact, all of the basic components - not only for holographic recording and reproduction but also for live, interactive holographic communications - have already been developed. And the first commercial systems are being readied for launch. At the end of last year, three top executives from telecoms networking giant Cisco Systems 'convened' in Bangalore to give the world's first real-time holographic presentation. Only chief executive officer John Chambers was physically present, standing on stage in front of his Indian audience. His colleagues, Marthin de Beer, senior vice president of emerging technologies and Chuck Stucki, general manager of the telepresence business unit, were at Cisco's headquarters in San Jose, California.

Not that anyone in the audience noticed much of a difference, though. As soon as Chambers 'beamed up' de Beer and Stucki, their full, three-dimensional, life-size bodies appeared to join him on stage; only a minimal delay in their otherwise natural voices (and an ethereal appearance) giving away the fact they were really thousands of miles away. "I can see you like you're right in front of me," Chambers told de Beer. "You can see each other as if we were playing poker." He went on to suggest that the technology could help doctors communicate with remote patients without leaving their hospitals, and to bring corporate users together with remote colleagues, clients or providers, in such an immersive experience that there would be no need to travel for face-to-face meetings.

TELEPRESENCE ON STEROIDS

We have had such promises before. In 2006, HP and then Cisco made the same case for the end of business travel when they launched telepresence products. Traditional videoconferencing had failed to live up to expectations, they argued. And they had the solution for it: a cocktail of high-definition video, spatial audio, life-size images, high-bandwidth links, designer furniture and even specially selected wall colours, that would elevate videoconferencing to a whole new level of immersion. To a large degree, they were right. I had the chance to test one of the more than 240 telepresence rooms that Cisco has deployed at its offices in 110 cities around the world. From Cisco's newly installed TelePresence 3000 room in Buenos Aires, I interviewed Erica Schroeder, the company's director of marketing management for TelePresence, who was joining me from San Jose. Schroeder claims that - at a time when fuel prices are seemingly out of control, the global economy is cooling, and reducing your carbon footprint is paramount - Cisco and its telepresence clients are both saving millions of precious dollars and helping save our planet.

These rooms are not cheap to install and run. Each costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the overall experience is convincing enough to have the potential to slash a significant portion of today's corporate travel budgets. Richard Norris, a UK-based practice consultant with US teleconferencing experts Wainhouse Research, agree

videoconferencing, which was poor. It's even a step up from the current breed of higher-end videoconferencing equipment." The question is whether these early telepresence systems will evolve into holographic videoconferencing systems in the quest for ultra-realism.

"You can imagine an extension of today's technology into a realm that's not too far away," says Schroeder. "You can think about the telepresence on-stage experience - that 360-degree view of somebody being physically there - being easily applied to a meeting situation."

"Telepresence technology was a significant step up from historicalThe term 'easily' seems an exaggeration when one looks closely at the effort Cisco had to
put in to stage its Bangalore-San Jose holographic link last year. While the networking side of it didn't differ much from a typical telepresence call between two distant sites, generating the on-stage 3D hologram involved some significant logistics issues. Dimensional Studios, a London-based company, supplied Cisco with the complex holographic projection system.

Called Musion Eyeliner, it had, until that point, only been used to show pre-recorded 3D images of people, such as Prince Charles, or animated characters, such as virtual pop stars Gorillaz. For the Cisco on-stage telepresence demonstration, the projector was fitted on top of a high truss framework mounted on the stage. Live HD images of the San Jose executives were shined from this ultra-bright projector down to a large screen placed between the stage and the audience, hidden below stage level. The images were reflected off this screen to be displayed on a large sheet of transparent, invisible foil (called Eyeliner) that ran across the stage. Only then could the original 2D images be perceived as a 3D rendering of the remote participants, who appeared walking and talking naturally on-stage.

It worked. But one can only wonder how such a complex approach could be replicated in
a typical business meeting room. One company that claims to have met this challenge is
Digital Video Enterprises. Based in Irvine, California, DVE is also initially targeting the emerging market for 3D telepresence in live events. But, unlike the Cisco/Dimensional Studios approach, the DVE Telepresence Stage product does away with the large truss and foil. Instead, it uses a Christie Mirage 16K projector, from which the image is displayed on a proprietary, transparent direct projection screen measuring 2.13m × 3m. The choice of codec is open, although the company recommends 1080p, and, more specifically, the HaiVision 1080p codec.

New 3D systems could present wireframes of automobiles right there on the meeting room desk

"The idea is that you can go into a venue and, essentially, the whole system will fit into two road cases," says Jeff Machtig, co-founder of DVE. "The only bit of planning required is to have a quality-of-service line for the bandwidth. "Sometimes we'll bring a second projector

and project what appear to be 3D holograms floating on the screen next to the person on the stage. We call this augmented reality telepresence, and what we're doing is mixing the presenter with media," says Machtig. The second projector allows for what is known as 'stereoscopic 3D'. The system also supports 'volumetric 3D' (the illusion of something that appears to be 3D but really is 2D), achieved using chromakey techniques.

Based on much of the technology DVE uses on its stage system, the vendor has now
designed what will effectively be the world's first corporate telepresence rooms to support holographic videoconferencing.

Called the Tele-Immersion Room, it will replace the bank of multiple HD plasma screens
used in most other telepresence vendors' systems with a large, reflective optic running from one side of the room to the other. Built into the table there's a 120in rear-projection screen. Each of the purpose-built rooms will accommodate up to eight people.

"The room provides the local people with the visual impression that the people they're talking to are no longer inside of a projection screen but literally sitting in the room with them, on the other side of the desk," says Machtig. "We did an industry showing of it at Telepresence World 2007 and we blew everybody away. It's something that really does replace travel; it does everything but handshakes." Just as in the stage version, the Tele-Immersion Room will let users see 3D images of products floating in mid-air. A manufacturing company

could then take 3D CAD files of a prototype product and share them with remote colleagues, suppliers or customers. "One of the things we can do is to chroma key a virtual person staying next to a 3D stereoscopic image," Machtig says. "So you can have a live person walk into the 3D image and, on the other side of the display there are confidence monitors that allow a person to accurately point to various aspects of this 3D image in real time.

"Say that you are a general and you've got somebody presenting a battlefield scenario in 3D space (X, Y, Z). You could then point out satellite positions, ship or radar installations, fighter positions etc, and do all of this accurately inside the 3D model. It's the coolest thing you've ever seen in your life. And we're demonstrating this capability almost every day in Santa Ana, California." Machtig gives another example of the way the 3D stereoscopic feature could be exploited by a carmaker: "If we were showing the wireframe of a car in one of our Immersion Rooms, the entire, 2.7m-long wireframe would literally sit on the boardroom table right in front of you.

"The reason some of these larger companies are drooling over this is because we're the only company in the world that can show a 3D image in a boardroom where you're not looking into a projection screen. This is truly the Princess Leia-type effect that Hollywood has trained us to believe is what 3D really is," he says.

The system is scheduled for commercial launch at the turn of the year. "The Immersion
Room is finished; what's been holding us up has been the network," admits Machtig. "But we have recently signed agreements with Tier-1 carriers for bandwidth and we've got long-haul, short-haul and metro loops in the can now."

Smoke and mirrors

Does this mean Cisco and HP should be worried, then? Wainhouse Research's Norris certainly doesn't think so: "If you haven't seen holographic telepresence (or pseudoholographic telepresence) before, it's massive on 'wow' factor; it's like nothing you've seen before. It truly is threedimensional.

"But I think the challenge for the holographic version [of telepresence systems] is: what does it actually give over and above telepresence? There is a 'wow' factor, but what's the actual application that it's aimed at? I think there are applications, such as those DVE is targeting with its stage and podium products. Those are certainly niche applications, but I don't see that as mass deployment; I see that as fairly bespoke niche applications aimed at very small possible usage.

"For the large, Fortune-100 multinationals, I am sceptical of what the application is. [There's a risk] that it could possibly be perceived as 'smoke and mirrors' rather than as a real business application that gives you something which either high definition videoconferencing or telepresence does not." Machtig couldn't disagree more. Asked whether DVE has any companies interested in buying the 3D rooms, he replies: "We have a lot of them - dozens - that are already in the queue to get this. By the end of next year you're going to be surprised by how many companies have jumped on this."

[via IET]

TANDBERG Launches T3 Telepresence System and Announces Expanded Partnership with HP Halo with Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis

HSL — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:10:06 -0500

The TANDBERG T-3 with optional environmental package

TANDBERG has launched the TANDBERG T3, a six-seat telepresence group system that replaces the TANDBERG Experia. The system is available as a modular system or with an optional environmental package that provides chairs and innovatively designed Nordic-blue light walls and lighting package that combine to make remote participants seem to "pop" off the screen. The T-3's list price is $299,000 and the optional environmental kit starts at $39,000.

TANDBERG Video showing the T-3 in Action

The TANDBERG T-3 uses the company's high definition 1080p C90 Codec which makes the system compatible with the single screen TANDBERG T-1 telepresence solution announced in June. The T-3 is also inter-operable with other standards-compliant videoconferencing and telepresence solutions. Running video at 1080p resolution the T-3 (and the T-1) use 3-4MBps per screen. The system also features a new touch sensitive control pad for call set up, call framing, and other conference controls. The T3 will be available in January 2009.

The TANDBERG T-1 Telepresence System

The TANDBERG Telepresence Server

TANDBERG also announced the TANDBERG Telepresence Server (TS 8710), a telepresence and videoconferencing Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) designed specifically to support TANDBERG telepresence solutions as well as connect with other TANDBERG videoconferencing solutions and standards-compliant videoconferencing systems from other manufacturers. The TS is based on the award wining telepresence and videoconferencing infrastructure offerings from Codian whom TANDBERG acquired in September of 2007. The TS supports up to 144 screens/codecs of video at up to 6MBps per screen/codec. The TS chassis supports up to nine blades that will each support up to 16 screens per blade. The cost of each blade is $320,000 or $20,000 per screen/codec supported. The basic chassis with AC power is $49,000 and will support a variety of additional blades including: High Definition and Standard Definition Videoconferencing Blades, ISDN Gateway Blades, and IP VCR Blades. Both the TS and Tandberg telepresence systems can be managed using the TANDBERG Management Suite.

The TS offers up to 5 different viewing modes specific to the multi-camera/codec requirements of telepresence solutions.

The TS can connect multiple videoconferencing systems from multiple vendors on multiple networks (IP and ISDN) and combine these diverse systems into a single multi-point call.

TANDBERG and HP Halo Announce a New Managed Service Offering and Expanded Reseller Agreement.

On October 7th TANDBERG and HP announced a global managed service offering that will make HP Halo's Managed Video Services including technical support, directory management and auto meeting initiation available for the full range of Tandberg conferencing solutions. The service will provide access to the HP Halo Video Exchange Network (HVEN) at T1/E1, NxT1/E1, and T3 speeds and will connect end-points to Halo's growing telepresence and video conferencing Community of Interest Network. HP Halo customers can now supplement their HP Halo Collaboration Studios with TANDBERG telepresence solutions, HD and SD video conferencing systems, and executive systems. The service will also support telepresence and videoconferencing endpoints from other manufacturers. The service will bundle help desk, network, and shared video network infrastructure into an all-inclusive fixed price service.

HP Halo Managed Video Service and TANDBERG - A Visual Overview

The companies also announced an expanded partnership that will see HP's global sales organization reselling TANDGERG's complete line of telepresence and video communications offerings while TANDBERG will make the HP Halo Video Collaboration Service available to its customer base. HP Halo will continue to sell its HP Halo Collaboration Solutions and will continue its R&D efforts in the field of telepresence.

TANDBERG Says Talks with Private Equity Group End
In other TANDBERG news the company has announced that its talks with a private equity fund interested in purchasing the company has ended due to the turmoil in the financial markets, during which it has proved "impossible to achieve acceptable pricing and financing conditions".

Human Productivity Lab President Howard S. Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis

I have to begin with the caveat that I have not yet gotten a demo of the T3 yet. Even though the Human Productivity Lab and TANDBERG's HQ for the Americas are neighbors on the Silicon Plantation of Northern Virginia, they are still setting up their T3 so it will be mid-October before I get completely experienced. I have had a demo of the TANDBERG T-1 and since the T3 is essentially three T-1s artfully welded together I can share that the picture quality generated by the TANDBERG's C90 codec is superb, the design elegant, and the capabilities robust.

What I Liked
The C-90 Codec - 1080p, interoperable with standards based telepresence and videoconferencing endpoints, integrateable with the Tandberg Management Suite, and their recording and streaming platform.

The Rest of the TANDBERG Product Line - Probably the most compelling feature of the new T3 is its compatability with the rest of the TANDBERG product line. From the single screen T1 to executive systems to Codian video network infrastructure to recording/archiving/streaming and management, TANDBERG offers all the pieces necessary to build a complete telepresence and visual collaboration capability for the enterprise. These are capabilities that the overwhelming majority of TANDBERG's competitors can't touch.

My Wish List

Hide the Camera - Visible Cameras have an attendant psychological impact on attendees. People behave differently when they are on-camera so hiding or at least minimizing it is a no-brainer.

Less Bezel and Seams - This may be whining on my part but I am longing for the day when we can put the three flat screen monitor approach to telepresence to death. DVE's Tele-Immersion Room gives a glimpse of our seamless future today and HP Halo had a prototype for a seamless, lenticular screen working in HP Labs two years ago. I am waiting to see which vendor gets us out of the box first.


Some Thoughts and Analysis on TANDBERG's Overall Strategy
For a company that was completely blind sided by the telepresence revolution and has been playing catch up ever since TANDBERG is finally starting to find their legs. My experience with TANDBERG and telepresence goes back to Q3 2004 more than a year before HP Halo launched their offering and two years before Cisco launched theirs. I was trying to put together an MBO of failing TeleSuite when it could have been had for less than $10MM bucks and couldn't even get 15 minutes of Andy Miller's time. Note to CEOs: If someone wants to tell you about a competitive product that gets 5X the usage of yours in a market that Cisco and HP are about to enter perhaps you should have a listen. I have been watching them get their lunch eaten ever since.

Telepresence Endpoints - The T3 replaces the Experia which was essentially a "me too" offering that TANDBERG threw together at the last minute to counter HP Halo, Cisco, Teliris, and Polycom who all beat TANDBERG to market with multi-screen group systems. When Cisco launched their offering in October of 2006 and took the industry on a moonshot TANDBERG didn't even have a horse in the race. It has been rumored that they have sold less than 75 Experia since the launch which is a somewhat decent for a new offering of this expense in a technology that has just begun climbing the adoption curve. It is, however, a fraction of what has been sold by Cisco and HP who came into their market, redefined it, and kicked their ass with V1 products while TANDBERG spent a year trying to figure out what was going on and how to counter it. The T3 with the C90 codec is a huge improvement over the Experia in resolution, styling, capabilities, and the environment. While I haven't had a chance to play with new touchscreen and GUI, I am going to assume that there is probably a big improvement in ease-of-use as well.

Video Network Infrastructure - Here is where TANDBERG has the advantage over the competition. In 2007 TANDBERG acquired Codian the leading manufacturer of vendor neutral HD video network infrastructure. That acquisition allowed TANDBERG to lock up a vendor neutral platform that they could then tightly integrate with their endpoints and management platform AND took the largest and most sophisticated engineering team working on video network infrastructure off the market blocking some folks who are probably kicking themselves right now. The TANDBERG/Codian platform is quickly becoming the defacto standard for telepresence and videoconferencing managed service providers who must manage multiple HD video streams and connectivity between multiple platforms. I spoke with Pat Montani, the CEO of IP-V Gateways who hosts dozens of MCUs in his facility and matches QoS tagging on 27 different IP networks for real time video traffic. Pat's thoughts on the Codian: "The MCU is the heart of effectively inter-connecting telepresence with HD video conferencing and legacy ISDN systems. The Codian is hands down the best MCU on the market and gives TANDBERG a competitive advantage by sitting right in the middle of where the value is created". The release of the TANDBERG Telepresence Server is where you start to see the fruits of the Codian acquisition pay dividends in their telepresence line up. The ability to create effective multi-point meetings that leverage telepresence's multi-screen format and bridge disparate legacy systems is powerful. The T3 is sexy and has some sizzle but the Tandberg Telepresence Server is the steak in this announcement.

The HP Halo Partnership and Managed Services - Here is another area where I have been disappointed with TANDBERG but where they finally seem to be moving the ball. While other telepresence vendors like HP Halo, Polycom and Teliris have offered managed services from the beginning and even Cisco had channel partners like Tata/Glowpoint and WireOne that built managed service offerings around Cisco TelePresence in short order, TANDBERG has been slow to get into the game. Providers like Glowpoint and Nortel have supported TANDBERG endpoints but that is different than having an offering yourself and has especially limited their ability to play in the big game: Building an effective inter-company telepresence network of growing utility. TANDBERG has had a relationship with HP Halo for 20 months which until this week has been rather disappointing. It took them 8 months to make the HP Halo compatible with standards based videoconferencing systems and even then all they did was essentially rack a TANDBERG 6000 in the Halo environment.

The HP Halo HVEN Network

Now they have a partnership to deliver managed video services over the HP HVEN network and a sales and marketing partnership to take these joint solutions to market. I spoke with Darren Podrabsky from HP Halo and Stephen Vobbe and Hellene Garcia from TANDBERG and they were quite bullish on the potential. They claim the right sales incentives are in place for success. The deal is quite positive because HP Halo has suffered by inheriting a product that DreamWorks essentially built for themselves without an eye towards replicability or interoperability. The partnership with TANDBERG now gives them a wider variety of more capable end-points to fill up the HVEN network while TANDBERG gets a partner with a global network, global salesforce, and a telepresence Community of Interest Network that connects some of the biggest names in the Fortune 500.

The partnership announcement begs as many questions as it answers: What is going to ultimately happen to the HP Halo Product Line? Why would anyone buy an SD HP Halo with 50" screens when they could get an HD T3 with 65" screens for less? Why would anyone buy a $120,000 single screen HP Halo Collaboration Centre when you could buy a more capable TANDBERG T-1 for $69,000? Will HP's superb GUI and innovatively integrated document camera make it over to the T3? What is going to happen with the next generation telepresence technologies that HP Labs was working on: seamless lenticular displays, 3D and multi-viewpoint imaging including stereo, linear and 2D camera arrays. I have heard HP Labs jokingly referred to as "the graveyard where great technologies go to die"... Could the practically focused Norwegians at TANDBERG help resurrect this important work?

Other:

Telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery"

Last week I spoke to a group of CTOs, CIOs, and others via video from the Silicon Plantation to Austin, Texas on the topic of: "Telepresence as Economic Disaster Recovery". My talk was sponsored by telepresence and video inter-connection provider MASERGY Communications who I would like to thank for the opportunity.

In my presentation I discussed strategies for how smart organizations can leverage telepresence and effective visual collaboration to prepare for rising costs, slowing sales, plummeting airlines,
imploding suppliers, and the very real possibility of a systemic financial meltdown.

Executive Summary:
Get costs down, productivity up, and improve your ability to
effectively collaborate with your branch offices, partners, vendors,
and customers globally in an economic environment where physical travel
is expensive and inefficient.

I discussed the ramification of the continuing collapse of commercial aviation and laid out strategies that smart organizations can take immediately to get prepped for a general business slowdown, depression, and/or a worse case scenario.

This presentation will not be released on the Telepresence Options website so to get a copy please sign up for our occasional newsletter the Telepresence Options Telegraph which we will be releasing next week.

Telepresence People

Douglas Johnson, CEO of Telanetix, has been appointed Chairman of the Board

Brice Drogosch has joined Telanetix as Western Vice Regional Vice President of Video Sales

Steve Parrish has joined Telanetix as Eastern Region Vice President of Video Sales

Linda Bickelman has joined Telanetix as Director of Channel Development -- Video

David Murphy has been appointed Senior Vice President - Imaging and Printing Group at HP which includes the HP Halo division

Wayne McAllister has joined TANDBERG as Senior Vice President- Global Services

Wendy McIntire has joined Nortel Managed Services as Director of Multimedia Solutions Management

Scott Lee has joined On-Stream Media as Vice President, Business Development

Leonardo Freitas has joined Electrosonic as Associate Vice President of Product Development

Ramzi Shakra has joined Electrosonic as Senior Marketing Manager

John Lytle has joined Nortel as Director of Global Services

Neil Suhre has joined Nortel as Training and Process Manager

Brandy Baxter has joined the HP Halo team as PR Manager

Deborah Linggi has joined the HP Halo team as Analyst Relations Manager

UPDATED AGAIN- Sept 16th-The Crash of Commercial Aviation and Telepresence

HSL — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:34:53 -0500

UPDATE - September 16th, 2008 - Three more airlines have declared bankruptcy in the last week: Spanish carrier Futura, it's Irish subsidiary Futura Gael, and XL Leisure Group who stranded 89,000 customers abroad and left another 200,000 ticket holders in the lurch. Willie Walsh, the CEO of British Airways, openly predicted that an additional 30 airlines could disappear by the end of the year. The Irish bookmaker Paddy Power has opened a book on which airline will go bust next. British Airways confirmed that it has offered buyouts to 1,400 managers.

UPDATE - September 8th, 2008 - Three more airlines have declared bankruptcy in the last 45 days: Zoom Airlines, Vintage Props and Jets, and the Italian national carrier Alitalia bringing total bankruptcies over two dozen. The flight information company OAG has announced that the carriers will offer 60 million fewer flights between October and December of 2008. The airfare reasearch site FareCompare.com reports that domestic fares between large metro cities are already up roughly 16 percent since Jan. 2, while fares between small cities are up roughly 37 percent year-to-date.

Telepresence's impact on the airlines is starting to be felt... HSBC, which recently announced a deployment of 6 Cisco TelePresence systems, reports that they were able to save $604,000 on air travel in one month between their London HQ and their Hong Kong office. Publicly available telepresence deployments are starting to accelerate. Tata Communications has launched the first five publicly available Cisco TelePresence systems in what they have announced will be a 100 system global roll-out by the end of 2009. PangeAir has begun rolling out publicly available telepresence locations in Hyatt hotels and launched a publicly available location in the Dayton Convention Center. The Human Productivity Lab has relaunched our website for Powwow Virtual and is seeking partners and investors for our business model for a global network of publicly available telepresence conferencing centers featuring multiple telepresence systems connected to multiple telepresence Community of Interest Networks.

Original Article Follows:

In our 2006 paper Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration, and the Future of Global Business at the Speed of Light we predicted that the collapse of the dollar would send the cost of oil skyrocketing which would destroy the airlines' business model. Specifically we wrote:

"For decades, commercial and executive aviation have provided cost-effective transportation for business travel largely thanks to relatively inexpensive jet fuel from relatively inexpensive crude oil. From 1994-2004, the price for a barrel of NYMEX light sweet crude averaged between $10 and $30 a barrel. Since 2004, the price per barrel has more than doubled to $71.76 as of this writing (June 12th, 2006) and the price of jet fuel has risen from $0.82 a gallon to $3.45 a gallon today.xxiv And it won't stop there. A number of potential geopolitical risks, natural disasters and resource economics issues could very well send the price of oil even higher, making a significant impact on the affordability and convenience of air travel.

The Oil Picture in 2006 vs. the Oil Picture Today

The commercial aviation industry relies on cheap seats and full planes. Reducing either side of this equation creates a vicious cycle for the carriers. Rising fuel prices equals higher ticket prices, which reduces demand for seats. Less passengers leads to even higher ticket prices as carriers cover flying costs at reduced capacities. Higher ticket price leads to . . . reduced demand for seats. Dramatically more expensive oil could deal another significant blow to the international aviation industry, which saw five bankruptcies in 2005 and is still reeling from six straight years of net losses, with 2006 set to be number seven.xxv The International Air Transport Association recently raised its 2006 net loss forecast to $3 billion from $2.2 billion, and a major increase in the price of jet fuel would substantially increase these losses even further and most likely see marginally profitable routes and flights eliminated making air travel even less convenient.xxvi Additional airline bankruptcies will inevitably lead to reduced competition, which equals higher costs and less convenience.

The growth of telepresence and effective visual collaboration will worsen this dynamic by further reducing demand for commercial aviation among business travelers who are the airlines least price dependent customers. When Cigna deployed two TeleSuite Systems between its offices in Philadelphia and Bloomfield, Conn., it eliminated thousands of flights a year. Its ticket volume grew so low the company's US Air representative even called to inquire about the financial health of the company.xxvii HP reported a two percent reduction in its $800MM+ travel costs in Q4 2005, with less than half of its planned deployment of 24 Halo Collaboration Studios active (no wonder the company is considering doubling that number in the future)."

Unfortunately, we called the crash of the dollar and the airlines like Babe Ruth's storied home run at Wrigley Field. Since December 2007, ~~seven~~ ~~eight~~ ~~nine~~ ~~ten~~ ~~twenty-four~~ ~~twenty-seven~~ Twenty-Nine different carriers have declared bankruptcy or ceased operations, forcing mergers like the Northwest and Delta union. Count on continued turmoil in the industry to lead to additional fiascoes such as the faulty wiring issue that caused American Airlines to ground their entire MD-80 fleet, canceling about 3300 flights in the process. Travel woes now extend beyond American shores, demonstrated by the way British Airways mishandled its move to the new T5 terminal at Heathrow - causing over 400 cancellations and thousands of pieces of stranded luggage.

As the depreciating dollar continues to fuel price increases expect the cost of physical travel to soar and price competition between the airlines to decline. Bankruptcies and consolidation will reduce convenience as duplicate and unprofitable routes are eliminated. Expect smart organizations to hedge their risk against travel disruptions and price increases by deploying telepresence to reduce the expenses and inconvenience associated with physical travel. Publicly available telepresence will begin to take some of the travel market away from the airlines, compounding the carriers' problems as they lose their least price sensitive business travelers to the world of virtual travel.

The HPL Timeline of Airline Bankruptcies, Mergers, Acquisitions, and Fiascoes

Bookmark this page... It will, unfortunately, be an on-going project...

Airline Bankruptcies and Failures

MaxJet Airlines - Filed December 24th, 2007 - MaxJet, an "all-business class carrier" files for bankruptcy and quits flying stranding passengers on Christmas Eve.

Big Sky Airlines - March 8th, 2008 - Big Sky Airlines is grounded. The Billings-based company flew its final flights into the city on Saturday after its parent company announced in December that it would cease operations because of disappointing revenues.

Aloha Airlines - Filed March 20th 2008 - Ten days later, on March 30th, Aloha Airlines announced the suspension of all scheduled passenger flights the next day.

ATA Airlines - Filed April 2nd 2008 - ATA Airlines has discontinued all operations and cancelled all current and future flights.

Skybus Airlines - Filed April 4th 2008 - Ceased operations as of April 5th, citing the lagging economy and rising fuel costs as causes

Skyway Airlines - April 5th 2008 - On January 16th, 2008 Midwest Airlines announced that it would transition the operation of all Midwest Connect flights from Skyway Airlines to SkyWest Airlines. Skyway's last day of operations was April 5th, 2008.

Oasis Hong Kong Airlines - April 8th 2008 - Oasis stops accepting bookings on April 8th and ceases operations shortly thereafter.

Frontier Airlines - Filed April 11th 2008 - Frontier said it would continue normal business operations - operating its full schedule of flights and maintain employee wages, healthcare, vacation and other benefits.

Champion Airlines - May 31st 2008 - Champion Air announced on March 31st that it would cease operation on May 31st 2008. In the company's press release CEO Lee Steele announces that the company's business model "is no longer viable in a world of $110 oil" and "a struggling economy".

EOS Airlines - April 26th, 2008 - "Business-class niche carrier Eos Airlines Inc. ceased operations yesterday after filing for bankruptcy protection, the latest casualty of a credit crunch and a money-losing airline industry that has been hit hard by high fuel prices."

Air Midwest - May 14th, 2008 - Soaring fuel costs have forced Mesa Air Group to shut down subsidiary carrier Air Midwest. Service to 16 small cities in 10 states will be discontinued as a result. The cuts will begin next week and be completed by June 30. In Arizona, travelers will lose service in Kingman and Prescott.

Silverjet Airlines - May 30th, 2008 - Silverjet airlines, a "business-class only" carrier ceased operations on May 30th after failing to securing financing to continue operations. Telepresence provider Teliris announced free telepresence meetings between New York City and London for Silverjet customers displaced by the airline's failure.

Gemini Air Cargo - June 19th, 2008 - Gemini Air Cargo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday for the second time in two years. Gemini filed its recent Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of Florida and is represented by South Florida law firm Berger Singerman. Filing attorney Paul Singerman could not be immediately reached for comment.

Vintage Props and Jets - July 21st, 2008 - Small airlines serving three cities in Florida and Bahamian destinations temporarily ceased operations on July 18, after talks with a "promising investor/buyer" stalled. The company's website said the company plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The state reported the 40 layoffs on July 21.

Zoom Airlines - August 28, 2008 - Zoom Airlines, the trans-Atlantic carrier that ceases operations, leaving at least 4,500 travelers stuck abroad and another 60,000 holdingticketsthat can't be used... Slowing economies and a $50 million increase in fuel costs in the past 12 months led Zoom to join the two dozen carriers that have ceased flying or filed for bankruptcy so far this year.

Alitalia - August 29th, 2008 - After reporting a net debt of nearly 1.2 million euros ($1.7 million) at the end of July, Italy's flag carrier airline Alitalia filed for bankruptcy on August 29. The beleaguered company had received an emergency loan of 300 million euros ($439 million) in April from the Italian government, which owns 49.9 percent of its national airline, but even these were not enough to keep the planes flying.

Futura Airlines - September 8th, 2008 - Spanish charter airline Futura International Airways suspended flights for a day on Monday as it filed for administration, Spain's transport and infrastructure ministry said... According to its website, Futura was Europe's largest independent medium-haul charter airline, flying a fleet of 38 Boeing 737s

Futura Gael Airlines - September 8th, 2008 - The Irish subsidiary of Spanish charter operator Futura Airlines also declared bankruptcy. The company operated charter flights to the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. The company announced that all flights were suspended, laid off 70 employees, and put 20 on notice.

XL Leisure Group - September 12th 2008 - XL Leisure Group, an air charter and tour package operator, collapsed on September 12th stranding 89,000 passengers abroad and leaving over 200,000 customers who had purchased tickets for future flights in the lurch. XL, which employs about 1,700 people, was based in Crawley, England, and served 50 destinations.

Airline Mergers and Acquisitions

Delta and Northwest Airlines - April 14th, 2008 - The two airlines agreed to a merger which "would create a global giant with more than 800 jets, 6,400 daily flights and nearly $32 billion in annual revenue. The carriers estimate the value of the new company at $17.7 billion."

BA announces purchase of French airline L'Avion - July 2nd, 2008 - British Airways said on Wednesday that it will buy French carrier L'Avion for 54 million pounds (68 million euros, 107 million dollars) to combine with its transatlantic OpenSkies operation.

American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia Airlines - August 14th 2008 - The three airlines announced that they had signed a joint business agreement for flights between the United States and Europe.

The airlines said they planned to apply for anti-trust approval from the United States Department of Transportation and would notify European Union authorities. The step comes a dozen years after American and British Airways' first effort to join their operations in a network stretching around the world. British Airways opened merger talks last month with Iberia, the Spanish carrier, although their deal is not yet final. In addition, the airlines said Finnair and Royal Jordanian, two partners under another marketing alliance, would be included in the anti-trust application

German Carrier Lufthansa to Take Over Brussels Airlines - September 15th, 2008 - Germany's largest carrier Lufthansa is to buy a 45 percent stake in the holding company that owns Brussels Airlines for 65 million euros ($91.4 million) as part of the company's ambitious expansion plans. The deal, announced Monday, Sept. 15, gives Lufthansa the option to take over all of Brussels Airlines in 2011 for a price not exceeding 250 million euros.

Airlines Scaling Back Service

Continental Airlines - April 17th 2008 - Continental reports a net loss of $80 Million, or 81 cents per share and announces that "it would reduce domestic mainline capacity -- the number of seats for sale -- 5 percent beginning this fall and take another 14 single-aisle Boeing 737-300 aircraft out of service as leases expire beginning in September."

Southwest Airlines - April 17th 2008 - Southwest announced that "its first-quarter net profit fell to $34 million, or 5 cents a share, from $93 million, or 12 cents a share, in the same period last year." The airline also announced that it was reducing the number of new aircraft acquisitions by 1/2

United Airlines - April 22nd 2008 - "the Chicago-based carrier said it will trim 2008 spending by $400 million, eliminate 1,100 jobs by the end of the year, cut domestic capacity 9 percent by the fourth quarter and ground 30 of its oldest and least-efficient aircraft." The company also posted a $537 million dollar first quarter loss and saw the value of its shares decline by 35%.

Delta Airlines - April 23rd 2008 - Delta said its net loss widened to $6.39 billion, or $16.15 a share, from $130 million. Delta blamed the $6.1 billion charge on fuel costs. Delta's per-gallon costs rose 48% to $2.85 as the carrier hedged 27% of its fuel consumption and realized about $46 million in gains. Delta said it would offer buyouts to more than half its employees and make substantial reductions in domestic flights while adding to international routes. The airline has said it aims to cut domestic flight capacity by 5% by August, in addition to a previous plan for a 5% cut this year. Delta's plans to shrink its fleet include eliminating 15 to 20 mainline and 60 to 70 regional jets by year-end.

Northwest Airlines - April 23rd 2008 - the fifth-largest U.S. carrier, posted a net loss of $ 4.14 billion, or $15.78 a share, compared with a year-earlier net loss of $292 million, or $3.34 a share. Northwest earlier announced plans to trim domestic capacity by 5 percent after the summer travel season by removing as many as 20 planes from flying. The carrier today also said it will suspend cargo freighter service to Guangzhou, China, on July 1 and to Taipei on Aug. 1 to improve aircraft utilization and profits.

British Airways - June 2nd 2008 - British Airways expects to trim its capacity later this year, Chief Executive Willie Walsh said on Monday, due to the effects of soaring oil prices...Walsh said it was too early to say whether the airline would cut destinations as part of the move to reduce capacity, but said cutting the frequency of flights was more likely in the winter period which starts at the end of October...BA said last month its fuel costs were set to rise 1 billion pounds this year.

Malaysia Airlines - June 2nd 2008 - Malaysia Airlines will review unprofitable routes and freeze recruitment as part of wide-ranging measures to cut costs, the national news agency reported Monday.The airline also plans to reduce the budget of all its divisions by 10 percent and stop spending on office refurbishment until further notice. "Routes that bleed cash... will be cut off."

American Airlines - July 3rd, 2008 - American Airlines, the US airline which is close to seeking a merger with British Airways, has told staff that it will cut 7,000 jobs by the end of the year, as it grounds aircraft in a bid to mitigate the impact of soaring fuel prices.

Air Canada Jazz - July 3rd, 2008 - Canada's discount airline Jazz Air said Thursday it will cut 270 employees as the regional airline operator reduces capacity by five percent. The job cuts follow the mid-June move by Jazz Air's primary customer, Air Canada, to cut 2,000 jobs as it reduces its flying by seven percent.

Midwest Airlines - July 14th, 2008 - Midwest Airlines, a unit of Midwest Air Group, on Monday said it would cut its work force by 1,200 employees, or 40 percent, making it the latest airline to reduce staffing amid soaring fuel prices.

Ryan Air - July 18th, 2008 - Ryan Air announced a 14 per cent cut in its flights from 1,850 a week last year to just under 1,600 this year. The Dublin based airline will base 28 aircraft in Stansted airport this winter compared with 36 last year. The move will cost about 900 jobs including 150 Ryanair staff. The firm is also shutting down operations for six weeks in late autumn from seven other European airports, including Basel in Switzerland, Palma in Mallorca, Valencia in Spain and Salzburg in Austria.

QANTAS will slash about 2000 jobs next week as the national carrier seeks to offset cost pressures caused by the crippling fuel crisis. The belt tightening also will include cutting loss-making flight routes from both domestic and international schedules. The economic situation confronting the airline is so grim senior managers, flight crew, engineers and ground staff will be included on the hit list. The cuts are expected to affect 5 per cent of the carrier's 36,000-strong worldwide workforce. Qantas last month pruned about 100 staff, cut services and agreed to retire four aged 747 jumbos.

Flybe - September 10th 2008 - The British airline Flybe has announced that it will fly 400,000 fewer seats between October and March. Instead of increasing capacity by 16% as planned it will only add 6%.

EasyJet - September 12th 2008 - EasyJet announced that it will cut 60 jobs at it Luton HQ on the heels of recently announcing reducing flights to London's Stansted airport.

British Airways - September 12th 2008 - British Airways, which has more than 45,000 employees, said Friday that it would offer about 2,000 managers incentives to quit as the airline seeks to reduce its employee costs. The airline chief executive, Willie Walsh, told Bloomberg Television that he expected 300 managers to take the buyout.

Potential Airline Mergers and Acquisitions

United and US Airways - April 28th, 2008 - The two carriers stepped up their talks after Continental Airlines Inc. caught United off guard by deciding not to pursue a deal with the UAL Corp.-owned carrier. United Airlines and US Airways are in very advanced talks with the expectation of announcing within two weeks that they are combining, a person close to the negotiations told The Associated Press on Monday. Combined, United and US Airways have about 91,000 employees and annual revenues of $31.8 billion.

BA close to joint venture with American and Iberia - July 3rd, 2008 - British Airways , American Airlines and Spain's Iberia are close to applying for antitrust immunity to form a transatlantic joint venture, the Financial Times said on Thursday. The airlines aim to reach an agreement on profit and revenue sharing this month, the paper said, citing executives of the three airlines, creating a new force dominating capacity between south-east Britain and the United States.

Airlines in Danger of Bankruptcy/Failure

AirTran Airlines - Two downgrades and a negative outlook given for the airline industry sent shares of AirTran Airways' parent company tumbling Monday nearly 19 percent to a new 52-week low."... AirTran is expected to continue to generate negative cash flow from operations and in the face of scheduled debt maturities and capital spending obligations, the company's modest cash balance could erode over the coming year," Moody's Investors Service said Monday as it downgraded AirTran's debt rating to a lower degree of junk status.... "AirTran has no unused lines of credit available and substantially all of its assets are encumbered," Moody's said.

Alitalia-Linee Aeree Italiane SpA- Cited by The Deal who notes: "Air France-KLM walked away from its... $217 million bid for Alitalia following the collapse of negotiations with unions on disagreements over how much restructuring work the carrier needed. The Alitalia auction is the government's latest attempt to sell its 49.9% stake in the money-losing carrier." - BANKRUPT

Mesa Airlines - Cited in an AP story as vulnerable. In early April 08 Delta announced that it was canceling a major contract worth $20 million a month to Mesa. Mesa has filed a federal lawsuit to to keep the agreement. The AP article also notes that Mesa subsidiary go! Airlines, an inter-island Hawaiian carrier reported a $20 million operating loss in the first 16 months of operations.

Midwest Airlines - Cited by The Deal which notes: "In accepting a $450 million take-private from white-knight bidder TPG Capital in August, Milwaukee-based Midwest escaped the reigns of hostile bidder AirTran Holdings Inc. "Midwest's fate could be tied to how willing TPG is to contribute new capital to the airline to help it buy new planes, which in turn could be determined by how bad the U.S. economy gets in the coming months."

Spirit Airlines - Cited by The Deal's Lou Whiteman as being vulnerable. Whiteman noted that Spirit's markets rely heavily on tourism which could fall off if the country enters a prolonged recession.

Virgin America Airlines - Avondale Partners airline analyst Bob McAdoo, in a research note, "cited preliminary filings with the Department of Transportation that suggest the carrier is rapidly losing money, and flew planes that were considerably emptier than some of its competitors through the end of last year." He noted "parallels between Virgin and the three failed airlines."

Fiascoes

American Airlines Cancels 3,300 Flights - April 2008 - American Airlines cancels nearly 3,300 flights last week for wiring inspections on MD-80 aircraft required by federal safety guidelines revealed in an audit.

British Airways Cancels 400 Flights, Delays Thousands of Passenger Bags - April 2008 - British Airways botches a move to a new terminal at Heathrow forcing the cancellation of more than 400 flights and misplacing thousands of bags.

United Airlines shares plunge 75% after six-year-old bankruptcy story - September 9th, 2008 - United Airlines shares plunged 75% after a false report that the carrier had returned to bankruptcy court surfaced on the internet. A six-year-old Chicago Tribune story on United's 2002 bankruptcy filing, spotted on a Google search yesterday morning by an investment newsletter, triggered a massive sell-off of the carrier's shares until trading was halted. The stock reached a low of $3, then rebounded once trading resumed to close at $10.92. Shares had ended the day at $12.30 on Friday.

Price Increases

Delta CEO: "Fares need to rise 15-20%" Some captured cities already up 80% - April 22nd 2008 - "During the first week of April, for example, leisure fares from traditional carriers on 280 major routes rose 13 percent from the previous year, according to data compiled by travel research firm Harrell Associates.But prices to several smaller cities served by fewer flights rose substantially more. Prices between New York and Pittsburgh, for example, doubled to $68 one-way, while a ticket from Newark, N.J., to Cleveland rose 80 percent to $124, according to the data."

Airlines to Charge $25 for Second Bag - April 22nd, 2008 - "Five of the six major airlines in the United States plan to start charging coach passengers as much as $25 next month to check a second bag, the latest move in their quest to offset high fuel prices."

U.S. Private-Jet Fuel Taxes Rise 65% in Senate Accord - April 25th 2008 - "U.S. business jetowners would pay 65 percent more in fuel taxes to finance federal air-traffic control upgrades, under an agreement among Senate leaders...The levy would increase to 36 cents a gallon from 21.8 cents now"

Delta raises second-bag fee to $50 Instead of offsetting rising fuel prices by charging passengers to check in the first piece of luggage, Delta Air Lines Inc. is doubling the fee most domestic passengers pay to check in a second bag. Starting with tickets purchased tomorrow for domestic travel on or after Aug. 5, passengers must pay $50, up from $25, to check a second piece of luggage.

Starting Today, No More Free Water on US Air - August 1st, 2008 - Charging for checked luggage and legroom isn't enough for some carriers - starting today, coach passengers flying aboard US Airways Inc. must pay for a drink of water. This morning, US Airways began charging fliers $2 for bottled water and sodas and $1 for teas and coffees. First class members, trans-Atlantic passengers and a select group of others are exempt from the extra fees.

US Domestic Fares Soar an average of 16% between major cities and 37% between smaller cities - Sepember 1st, 2008 - On average, domestic fares between large metro cities are already up roughly 16 percent since Jan. 2, while fares between small cities are up roughly 37 percent year-to-date, according to Rick Seaney, head of airfare research site FareCompare.com.

General Commercial & Executive Aviation Bad News

Head of EasyJet predicts that high oil prices will leave only 5 major carriers in Europe. Claims 50 carriers are endangered - June 2nd, 2008 - John Kohlsaat, head of EasyJet Germany, told Berlin's daily Der Tagesspiegel that high fuel prices could bankrupt up to 50 carriers leaving only 5 major carries in Europe.

Airline Industry Association Predicts between 2.3 Billion and 6.1 Billion in losses for airlines - June 3rd, 2008 - The International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicts losses of 2.3 Billion dollars this year if oil averages $106.50 a barrel and $6.1 Billion dollars if oil averages $135.

Bankruptcies seen for major airlines - June 14, 2008 - All of the major airlines could be in bankruptcy by early next year if oil prices stay where they are, a new study predicts. The grim analysis by the consulting firm AirlineForecasts was commissioned by the Business Travel Coalition. Its author concludes that the airline industry is in a full-blown crisis "and heading toward a catastrophe."

Los Angeles Airport Sees Drastic Schedule Cuts - August 5th, 2008 - Airline industry database company Innovata said that the number of flights airline companies have scheduled in and out of Los Angeles International in November will be down by 16.4 percent from a year earlier, the Torrance Daily Breeze reported. American Airlines plans to eliminate 86 arrivals and departures at the airport per week in November, Delta plans to eliminate 68, United plans to cut 266 flights, and those big airlines' regional affiliates also plan to eliminate more than 1,200 weekly commuter flights at the airport, the Breeze said. Aviation analyst Mike Boyd said more cuts could be around the corner

Pilots say bosses force them to fly low on fuel - August 9th, 2008 - Pilots are complaining that their airline bosses, desperate to cut costs, are forcing them to fly uncomfortably low on fuel. Safety for passengers and crews could be compromised, they say. The situation got bad enough three years ago, even before the latest surge in fuel prices, that NASA sent a safety alert to federal aviation officials. No action. Since then, pilots, flight dispatchers and others have continued to sound off with their own warnings, yet the Federal Aviation Administration says there is no reason to order airlines to back off their effort to keep fuel loads to a minimum.

British Airways CEO WIllie Walsh predicts an Additional 30 Airline Bankruptcies By EOY - September 15th, 2008 - Willie Walsh, British Airways' chief executive officer, has predicted that around 30 more airlines will likely go bankrupt in the near future, due to high oil prices and softening demand caused by the current economic slowdown and credit crunch. Walsh believes that most of these bankruptcies will occur within a matter of four months. The UK flag carrier's CEO believes that many small and medium sized companies-and especially the non-legacy airlines-will find it increasingly difficult to compete and survive as the economic situation turns ever more dire.

Additional Reading - Telepresence & Publicly Available Telepresence

Human Productivity Lab Telepresence Buyer's Guide

Broadband Properties Covers Publicly Available Telepresence

HP Halo and Marriott International Form Alliance to open "Public Access" Halo Rooms

The Telepresence Options Interview - Bob Briggs, President of PangeAir - Publicly Available Telepresence

Regus Business Centers to offer public TelePresence service with Cisco

Telepresence - An On-Demand Webinar with Howard Lichtman's Thoughts on Telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery"

HSL — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:00:04 -0500

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a webinar on telepresence and telepresence managed services for VoIP News sponsored by Nortel. I shared the virtual stage with Hugh McCullen, the GM of Nortel's Telepresence and Multimedia Services. During the webinar I discussed both the benefits of telepresence to the enterprise and the business case for investing now including the collapse of commercial aviation and telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery". Hugh McCullen discussed Nortel's Video Network Operation Center (VNOC) and managed services around telepresence.

Below you can find a link to view the webinar or simply browse the slides presented in the presentation. I have also added some thoughts on telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery"

Topics covered include:

What is Telepresence?
Connecting Supercomputing Human Brains
Telepresence Community of Interest Networks (CoINs)
The Coming Telepresence Utility Hockey Stick
Telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery"
Future Proofing Your Telepresence Investment
Telepresence Managed Service Providers
Nortel's Video Roadmap to Enterprise Transformation

Click the image above or visit this link for on-demand access to the webinar.
http://www.voip-news.com/webinar/high-def-network/?tfso=1686

Click Any Slide Below to Enlarge

For more on the crash of commercial aviation please read our article:

The Crash of Commercial Aviation and Telepresence

Howard Lichtman's Thoughts on Telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery"

You might say that I have been a little pessimistic on the global economy for a while. I have been buying gold and silver since 2003 when gold was at $331 an ounce and silver was at $6 an ounce to protect my savings from inflation. In July of 2005 I sold my home in Northern Virginia at what the Washington Post called the absolute peak of the Northern Virginia housing market, put the proceeds into gold and silver, and have rented ever since. BTW, less than a year later the property values in Northern Virginia tanked and the guy who bought my house put it on the market for almost 25% less and still couldn't find a buyer. For Christmas in 2005 I sent out almost two dozen copies of the, then, newly released and little known book Empire of Debt to my friends and family. The book laid out the coming crisis in Asset Backed Securities / Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) / NINJAs / Liar Loans etc. before 99% of the world had ever heard the terms much less realized that they would be wiping out Trillions of dollars of wealth globally. In my 2006 paper, Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration, and the Future of Global Business at the Speed of Light I accurately predicted the continued collapse of the dollar, the sky-rocketing of oil prices, and the crash of commercial aviation.

I share these anecdotes not as braggadocio but simply to establish that that my views are long founded and not simply those of a telepresence consultant looking to exploit the country's current economic problems. Now... on to the current crisis and why I believe that telepresence can help smart companies weather the storm.

The Current Crisis

The global economy is in a crisis. The privately-held Federal Reserve after years of steadily reducing the value of the dollar by steadily increasing the money supply has now created a situation where foreigners, central banks, US citizens, and even criminals are growing more and more reluctant to hold US dollars as a store of wealth. The Fed's policies contributed significantly to creating the stock market bubble of the 90s and the real estate bubble that followed. The problem has been exacerbated by an incompetent and corrupt US government and congress that has looted the treasury and run up a national debt of over 9.5 Trillion dollars and unfunded liabilities of over 53 Trillion dollars. We are seeing double digit increases in the necessities and luxuries of life, our housing bubble is rapidly deflating, foreclosures and unemployment are soaring, banks are failing, inter-bank lending has seized up, and the Fed is having to create hundreds of billions of dollars, if not ultimately trillions, to prop up largely insolvent commercial banks, investment banks, and Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac. Especially troubling is a sharp contraction in the money supply in July...the biggest one-month fall since 1959 and reminiscent of the inflation and then rapid deflation that contributed significantly to our last great depression. If all that wasn't enough we have one of the largest naval armadas in history headed to Iran and our client state Georgia, lead by CIA-installed puppet Mikheil Saakashvili, launches a sneak attack on a Russian enclave one week after 1000 US military personnel finished training up the Georgian military. We live in interesting times...

The Case for Telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery"

So what should the astute enterprise do in the face of rising costs, slowing sales, plummeting airlines, imploding suppliers, and the very real possibility of a complete collapse of the dollar?

Answer: Get costs down, productivity up, and improve your ability to effectively collaborate with your branch offices, partners, vendors, and customers globally in an economic environment where physical travel is expensive and inefficient.

Telepresence addresses all of these needs and further helps firms that must cut personnel to survive allowing them to more effectively leverage the talent they have left globally while improving personal and organizational productivity.

For the well positioned firms, venture capitalists, sovereign wealth funds, and private equity players looking to acquire distressed companies in the coming months and years, telepresence offers the ability to cost-effectively and rapidly integrate and manage global acquisitions.

The Human Productivity Lab Can Help

Because knowledge is specialized, the Human Productivity Lab stands ready to help firms better understand their telepresence and inter-networking telepresence options, accelerate due diligence, and effectively deploy telepresence and effective visual collaboration solutions to weather the storm.

Other:

LifeSize Communications joins Telepresence Options!

The Lab is pleased to welcome telepresence and video communications provider LifeSize Communications as a sponsor of our multi-vendor survey of telepresence and effective visual collaboration, Telepresence Options 2008. To get a free hard copy of the Telepresence Options 2008 Yearbook and/or to subscribe to our newsletter, the Telepresence Options Telegraph, sign up here: http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/syndication/

LifeSize Communications - LifeSize is the first company to develop and deliver high definition video communications products. Founded in 2003 by industry veterans and named "Videoconferencing Company of the Year" in 2007 by Videoconferencing Insight. LifeSize's award winning solutions combine exceptional quality, user simplicity and administrator manageability to make video communications a productive, true-to-life experience. LifeSize is headquartered in Austin, TX with subsidiaries in Europe and Asia Pacific, and a network of channel partners reaching more than 80 countries.

Telepresence People

Brian Kinne has re-joined Iformata Communications as Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing

J.D. Vaughn joins Telanetix as Vice President, Worldwide Telepresence Sales

Hana Jeddy has joined the Teliris marketing team

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

HSL — 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

HSL — 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