PangeAir TeleSuite System Connected in a Meeting

In our continuing survey of telepresence and effective visual collaboration I conducted a webconference and interview with Bob Briggs, the Co-founder, President, and Chief Operating Officer of PangeAir Inc., an emerging franchisor building a publicly available network of TeleSuite Systems that will be located in high-end hotels and multi-tenant office buildings. (In the spirit of full disclosure I was previously employed by TeleSuite as Vice President of Business Development and one of my frequently changing job descriptions was developing a business model for publicly available telepresence.)

To stream the webconference and interview click on the image above or HERE. Important Note: If this is your first WebEx webconference you will be prompted to authorize a thin WebEx client that will allow you to view the show. The Lab would like to thank Premiere Global Services for sponsoring our Webconference content.

HSL's Analysis
While publicly available videoconferencing has failed to set the world on fire it's not because there isn't a market opportunity to connect business people around the globe in a comfortable, productive, cost-effective manner. In addition, I can't think of another business where the alternative, global physical business travel, produces as much real PAIN in hard-dollar costs, lost productivity, and the lower back. Publicly available videoconferencing has remained moribund largely because the observant videoconferencing experience sucks, the costs were/are too high, the quality was/is poor, and effective, easy-to-use collaborative tools remain non-existent. The medium also suffers from what I like to refer to as a "lack of a business-class consistency-of-quality" where virtually every global publicly available videoconferencing room is different that every other room in lighting, acoustics, camera angle, cultural proxemics, etc. (This is why setting "The Standard" for Inter-company business is so important as well)

Most interestingly publicly available videoconferencing lives on with an ad-hoc network of thousands of global locations that see some use with the smart operators in the major metropolitan areas conducting hundreds of conferences a year that average $250 to $2,000+ per event for what is essentially the rental of a very small physical space and ~$10K - $100K in not-too-difficult to operate equipment.

What is the recipe for publicly available success? Improve the experience, lower the cost, and get the business model right. You also need a certain number of publicly available locations to get started (I believe PangeAir will launch officially with 50) and a network of corporate customers interested in extending their network of private, corporate locations helps as well and TeleSuite has AOL, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Duke University, and others.

For any company (HP, Cisco, Teliris, TeleSuite, etc.) looking to set "The Standard" for Inter-company visual collaboration Public Availability is a "no-brainer" for a number of reasons:

1. Public availability dramatically improves the utility of their existing telepresence offering. If you are a potential customer evaluating a solution and have Brand X that connects to some number of Global Fortune 3000 companies OR Brand Y that connects to some number of Global Fortune 3000 companies AND a global network of publicly available locations that differentiator could be substantial.
2. Public availability dramatically reduces the cost-of-sales - Demonstrating an effective visual collaboration environment is a very expensive proposition even for the big boys. You are taking at least two environments out of production (that your other employees and/or customers would like to use to run their business) then you have the sales person and sales manager's time and then depending on the importance of the prospect you probably have some senior executives, product managers, etc. Public availability allows you to flip the model around. Now you have prospective customers PAYING YOU to "try-it-before-they-buy-it".
3. Global network of demonstration facilities that pay for themselves with the ability to grow exponentially - See Reed's Law: http://www.reed.com/Papers/GFN/reedslaw.html
4. Profitable business in its own right - IF you get the business model right (While I believe that PangeAir's focus on hotels can be moderately successful, I believe there are better business models for driving adoption)

What about PangeAir?
So now that we have established that publicly available telepresence is a "no-brainer" and coming soon to a locale near you, what about PangeAir? Now that the telepresence market is heating up with HP and Cisco getting into the big game (and I can't believe that they are going to be our only two Global Fortune 500 entrants given the stakes and the web traffic that is hitting this site) PangeAir seems to have some things that appear fairly attractive to anyone wanting to sieze the high-ground of public availability:

1. A two-year head start with its attendant insitutional knowledge
2. A growing list of potential franchisees interested in owning a publicly available telepresence location
3. A franchise business model that reduces the development costs of launching dozens/hundreds of publicly available locations and improves the chance of success with dedicated, self-motivated entrepreneurs.
4. Most importantly, a Uniform Franchise Offering Circular that would take 4-8 months and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal expenses, staff time, and opportunity cost to duplicate.

How much is a 4-8 month lead worth in a race with a billion dollar prize at the end? I have a feeling we will find out sooner rather than later.