Yesterday the Imaging and Printing Group at HP, besides releasing over 100 new products, released some major HP Halo News including:

* Multi-point conferencing - Not only did the Halo team eliminate the most glaring deficiency in the Halo offering but they innovated while doing so. HP released a multi-point format that connects up to four locations in a single Halo conference and allows up to four participants from each remote site to appear together in a "round-table" format. Individual Halo Studios can be added to or dropped from a multi-point conference without interuption.

* Significant Price Reduction - A more than 20% price reduction on the upfront cost of the Halo Collaboration Studio from $550K to $425K.

* New Fortune 500 customers- New publicly announced customers including AIG Financial Products, BHP Billiton, and General Electric Commercial Finance.

* Translation Services - Halo customers can now access translation services translating English into more than 150 different languages including sign language through a relationship with Language Line Services of Monterey, CA. Halo customers have the ability of immediately engaging a Language Line interpreter via the phone or, with seven days notice, as a visible participant connected from an HP Halo Studio in Washington, DC, Chicago, or New York City.

An updated HP Halo Fact Sheet with the specifics can be found Here.
The complete HP Press Release can be found Here.

HP also released a new video that shows off the Halo Collaboration Studio's new Multi-point capabilities:

To watch the video click the image above or Here.

HSL's Thoughts and Analysis
I have not yet had a chance to participate in a multi-point Halo conference but I am heading up to New York City tomorrow to check it out and will have an eye-witness report soon. What I thought was even more fascinating in the announcement than the new multi-point capabilities was the strong and continued growth of the HP Halo Collaboration Network. According to the Fact Sheet(emphasis mine):

* As of May 31st, fifty HP Halo studios are either currently deployed or in development around the world, up from 18 studios in December 2005. This represents 178 percent growth in the total number of HP Halo studios globally.

* The HP Halo customer base has increased by 167 percent and now includes such world-class companies such as AIG Financial Products Corp., AMD, BHP Billiton, General Electric Commercial Finance, Novartis and PepsiCo.

* HP Halo has expanded its presence worldwide. Halo has grown from five (US, UK, Spain, Singapore and Israel) countries in December 2005 to thirteen countries with Halo studios now installed or under development in Germany, Japan, Switzerland, France, Chile, Australia, Ireland and India.

This is an amazing growth rate for an effective visual collaboration network and is sure to accelerate as the value and utility of being able to easily connect with HP's rapidly growing customer base (and HP itself) becomes more and more apparent. As I have consistently predicted since 2001 the "killer app" of the 21st centrury will be the ability to conduct effective, global Inter-company business. HP obviously gets this and has even begun promoting the concept in the new Halo Multi-point video which makes the point that: "The HP Halo Network is expanding, so you not only have the ability to connect to other HP Studios within your company but with other vendors, partners, and suppliers that are on the network" .

HP has also simplified the ability to connect to other companies and organizations on the Halo Network through their Graphical User Interface. The first choice is: What company would you like to connect to: AMD, DreamWorks, HP, etc. Then which Halo Studio: New York City, Barcelona, Spain, Singapore, etc.

I had the opportunity to interview Linda Starr, a corporate vice president at AMD, on AMD's usage of Halo for our upcoming publication: Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration and the Future of Business at the Speed of Light. Linda confirmed that AMD is already using their Halo Studios for Inter-company business including:

* The sales process - Meeting with prospective customers between their own two Halo locations (they have two more on order) and borrowing studios from other companies on the network all over the world.

* CTO Forums - Primarily with HP right now but they expect this to grow as the network grows

* Contract Negotiations - Linda indicated that executives were initially hesitent to use Halo for what is a fairly delicate engagement but ended up finding the experience comfortable and productive.

I have found that many telepresence and effective visual collaboration providers are reluctant to release the names of their customers for competitive reasons, and all the providers I have spoken with have individual customers that have specifically requested that their organization's name not be used in print. I believe this mindset will change dramatically as the cost and productivity advantages of effective inter-company collaboration and commerce becomes self-evident. Not advertising your organization's visual collaborative capabilities will be viewed as the 21st century equivalent of a business owning a telephone but keeping the number unlisted from prospective vendors, partners, and customers.

As more and more organizations begin to understand and embrace the ability to reduce the costs and improve the flexibility and quality of all their global interactions I expect effective visual collaboration networks to grow exponentially. The providers that will win the day are those that offer the most utility (effective inter-company business, content, publicly available locations, etc.) over and above simply Intra-Company travel avoidance and right now no one seems to understand this better than HP.