Cisco has made a number of new TelePresence product announcements including releasing a new signaling protocol that will allow other vendors to effectively connect with and inter-operate with Cisco TelePresence endpoints while keeping the correct eye-lines, spacial acoustics, and data collaboration capabilities.  The company has also announced a new, enhanced version of its flagship six seat telepresence group system: The Cisco CTS 3010 and a new enhanced version of its 18 seat classroom: The Cisco CTS 3210.  Cisco has also announced five new telepresence "experiences" or application specific customizations of its existing systems.  Find out what it all means with Telepresence Options Publisher Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis including his prediction and reasoning why 2010 will be the year that Inter-company telepresence and videoconferencing takes off

The big stories for the telepresence and visual collaboration industry coming out of last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is the rapidly developing "Battle for the Living Room" where telepresence and videoconferencing companies, consumer electronics companies, and networking providers have unsheathed their swords in the billion dollar contest to provide two-way videoconferencing over broadband internet connections to the home. Cisco, Polycom/IBM, and Skype/Panasonic/LG have all announced and/or demonstrated products that will bring high definition videoconferencing into the living room. In this article, I take a look at the current and future applications for home telepresence and videoconferencing, the various business models, the players who announced they are heading to the living room at CES and the other potential industry participants lurking in the home office and on the family computer who just might join them.    

Independent research firm and consultancy, Human Productivity Lab and Brockmann & Company, the customer insight firm, have published the industry's first comprehensive handbook on inter-company telepresence and video conferencing. "The Inter-Company Telepresence and Video Conferencing Handbook" educates CIOs, executives, managers, telepresence and video conferencing professionals about the opportunities, challenges and solutions for inter-company telepresence and video conferencing with partners, vendors, and customers.  

The Handbook comes during a week when a blizzard shut down much of the northeastern United States, 2,000 rail passengers are abandoned below the English Channel for hours, and a British Airways union threatened to strand tens of thousands of passengers.

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.

Plus: 

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.

Info on how to sign up for tomorrow's free webinar on telepresence featuring Human Productivity Lab President and Telepresence Options publisher Howard Lichtman: Bringing High Definition to Your Data Network

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.
PLUS An upcoming webconference on telepresence with Howard Lichtman

Telepresence Industry Professionals is now over 350 members!

InfoComm in Las Vegas was held the week of June 14th in Las Vegas. Telepresence Options was there getting the scoop on the latest and greatest in the field of Telepresence, Telepresence Managed Services, and Inter-networking Telepresence
Including "What makes a visual collaboration solution... Telepresence?"

PLUS updates on Digital Illusions, Digital Video Enterprises, Electrosonic, Glowpoint, HaiVision, HP Halo/TANDBERG, IMCCA, IPV Gateways, LifeSize Communications, Telanetix, TelePresence Tech, Teliris, Vidyo, and Virtela

Polycom announced that they have expanded their TPX product line with the addition of dual and single screen systems as well as added content on the table (pop up data collaboration screens) to the TPX 306M. 

Plus  Telepresence @ InfoComm - Best Bets!

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

PLUS Telepresence@InfoComm

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

PLUS Telepresence@InfoComm

The Crash of Commercial Aviation Continues (We updated the HPL Timeline of Airlines Bankruptcies, Mergers, Acquisitions, and Fiascoes.)

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

Human Productivity Lab YouTube Channel over 1,000,000 views!!

Superb article by Telephony Magazine's Dawn Bushaus on the inter-operability of telepresence networks and systems.  We like diversity at the lab.  We like the buffet at Platforma, the beer selection at the Brickskeller, and stores that sell nothing but thousands of different kind of socks.  But what we really like is when Dawn Bushaus goes out and talks to half the telepresence industry and brings back a diversity of views that can't be found anywhere else.  Dawn talks telepresence inter-operability from a customer's perspective with: Mike Brandofino of Glowpoint, Darren Podrabsky of HP Halo, Hugh McCullen of Nortel Multimedia Services, Erica Schroeder of Cisco, Joan Vandermate of Polycom, Ira Weinstein of Wainhouse Research, Mack Treece of Teliris, and the Human Productivity Lab's President Howard Lichtman.

Cisco and AT&T made some made some major telepresence announcements last week.  Cisco has received its 500th telepresence system order making TelePresence the "fastest growing business ever in emerging technology."

 AT&T has signed on as a Cisco TelePresence provider and has launched the industry's first Inter-company managed TelePresence offering with the ability to connect to joint venture partners, vendors, and customers on the AT&T network.

Here is an excellent article on the announcement by Roger Chen of Down Jones followed by Human Productivity Lab President Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis. 

Also an update on Telepresence Industry Professionals (TIP), our industry association for professionals in the telepresence industry which has attracted over 115 pros from the industry's leading firms. 

Dawn Bushaus at Telephony Magazine has a terrific piece on the telepresence revolution. She seems to have spoken with about half the emerging telepresence industry including Human Productivity Lab President and Telepresence Options publisher Howard Lichtman. After the article find information on how to join the Lab's new networking group for Telepresence Industry Professionals on Linked In.

So, what do you get when you combine the biggest swell to hit Teahupoo in years with space-age video technology? Easy. You get the best view, or should we say views, of the famed Tahitian lefthander...and you get to control the view. It works like this: Thanks to Immersive Media's 360-degree spherical video camera, a technology that uses a specially designed camera housing to capture eleven separate video streams, as well as their production and post-production platforms, all of the streams are arranged according to geodesic geometry to create a complete spherical image; in other words, a high-resolution, 360-degree view of Teahupoo's innards. By putting viewers in the director's seat and giving them the ability to look in all directions, the technology creates a first-of-its-kind video experience that gives viewers the feeling of actually being part of the action
.

This morning, HP Halo has announced an alliance with Marriott to make HP Halo telepresence systems publicly available at Marriott properties. HP Halo also announced the new customers AstraZeneca, Dow Chemical and Toshiba, who are now available on the HP Halo Video Exchange Network (HVEN), which now extends to 22 countries on 5 continents. The new announcements from HP do not end there; they now offer a new executive / small group telepresence system called The HP Halo Collaboration Center. On top of all of this good news, HP revealed that 80% of HP Halo clients have purchased additional systems. After the jump, get Human Productivity Lab President Howard Lichtman's thoughts and analysis on the announcement.

U.S. News and World Report covered telepresence in its March 10th issue in this superb article by Liz Wolgemuth.  The article features a number of quotes by Human Productivity Lab founder and Telepresence Options publisher Howard S. Lichtman, a couple of which could benefit from elaboration.  The complete article can be found below and the Lab recently published  a "Telepresence Buyer's Guide" featuring some "News You Can Use" for the readers of U.S.News and World Report entitled "Which Telepresence System is Best"

U.S. News and World Report has published a superb article on telepresence by Liz Wolgemuth entitled: "Telepresence" Enhances Video Conferencing. In that article, Wolgemuth quotes me on a variety of telepresence topics. There was one quote which I felt needed to be expanded upon:

"Cisco competes with HP, Polycom, Teliris, and other entries in the telepresence market. The larger companies all make similar systems at slightly varying prices," says Howard Lichtman, who runs both a research consultancy, the Human Productivity Lab, and a publishing arm called Telepresence Options in Ashburn, Va.

I was referring to the current prominence of flat-panel display technology and the degree of realism among many of the leading telepresence group systems. The reality is that the differences between vendors is vast and competing standards, inter-networking strategies, unified communications strategies, vendor technology road-maps, and other factors make telepresence a science and art of trade-offs: realism vs. price, quality of the environment vs. replicability, features vs. ease-of-use, international reliability vs. cost, security vs. utility, existing offering vs. technology roadmap, etc.

The "slightly varying price points" is inaccurate because the price of telepresence is actually all over the board.  The base cost of a telepresence group system can run the gamut from $35,000 to $350,000+ but architectural make-ready, collaborative peripherals, lighting, furniture, and acoustical treatment for the room all add to the final price tag.  And we haven't even touched on the costs of telepresence network infrastructure, bandwidth, internal help desk and/or external managed services.

To provide some "News You Can Use" for the readers of U.S. News and World Report, I have taken an excerpt from our upcoming publication the Telepresence Options 2008 Yearbook. In this Telepresence Buyer's Guide preview, we address some of the questions senior executives and managers evaluating telepresence have about telepresence. (We offer expanded information as part of our consulting services, which you can learn more about at the Human Productivity Lab).

Today, I attended the launch of a telepresence classroom connecting the Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service to their satellite campus in Doha, Qatar.  The program connects an 18 seat Polycom RPX telepresence system in Doha with a slightly smaller version, located on the Georgetown campus in Washington, DC. 

Jaime Thomson, Co-founder and Managing Director of Teliris passed away yesterday after a long battle with cancer.  He was 55 years old.  Jaime was part of what I like to call the "Old Boys Club" of telepresence innovators and visionaries who were trying to solve the human factors problems of visual communications during a time when no one thought there was much of a market for solutions that could cost as much as a house and required a dedicated DS3 of bandwidth to operate. 

Jaime was instrumental in building Teliris' successful base of operations in the UK and growing the company from a visionary start up to one of the leading firms in the telepresence industry. Marc Trachtenberg, CEO and co-founder of Teliris summed up Jaime's contribution to the company in a brief e-mail with the unfortunate news:  "Simply put Teliris would not exist if it were not for him".

Jaime is survived by his wife Ninette, his three children, and his friends and colleagues around the world.  

The Power of Green is a report from Brockmann & Company showing the business benefits of environmentally friendly business practices that include telepresence and videoconferencing. Peter Brockmann, President of Brockmann & Company and the report's lead analyst said, "Business people have worried about the cost of being green. We provide evidence that companies that focus on recycling in the office, reducing energy consumption in the office and use video conferencing or telepresence technologies intensively, also have higher customer satisfaction, higher employee satisfaction and higher revenues per employee."

Continuing with the lost "San Diego Sessions", Telepresence Options publisher Howard Lichtman had a chance to sit down with Aaron McCormack, CEO of BT Conferencing. The two discuss telepresence conferencing, BT's portfolio of multiple telepresence conferencing solutions from Cisco, Polycom, Tandberg, and Teliris, the network and managed services that BT Conferencing provides to simplify deployment, the coming BT telepresence CoIN and the future of telepresence at BT. After the transcript of the interview there is an update on telepresence at BT. Sneak Peak... Coming Soon: Managed Services for Cisco TelePresence, Polycom, Tandberg, and an inter-networking solution to connect Cisco TelePresence customers to their vendors, joint venture partners, and customers on the BT Global network.

Videoconferencing execs say sci-fi-esque offerings could move from concept to reality in a few years. Many are technically possible now, just not smooth or affordable enough for mass adoption. - An excellent article on Telepresence and videoconferencing from Jennifer Hagendorf Follett @ CMP Channel with a focus on what the channel partners and Value Added Resellers (VARs) of videoconferencing and telepresence need to keep current and ride the telepresence and videoconferencing wave.

Panasonic LifeWall

The report finds that the deployment of telepresence products and services are dependent on the nature of work in specific industries. The collaboration-dependent industries such as education, some parts of the financial services industries and medicine are classic collaboration centers.  The report reviews the link between importance and consumption of telepresence products and services where telepresence includes immersive, modular and high definition video conferencing.

David Danto is Director of Emerging Technology at the Interactive Multimedia Collaborative Communications Alliance (IMCCA) and Director of Global Multimedia Engineering for Lehman Brothers.  He is one of the sharpest guys in the conferencing and multimedia communications industry and someone whose thoughts and opinions I respect and value.  In this article for World Commerce Review, David touches on the history of telepresence, the benefits, the hype, and David's views of the pros and cons of some of the various telepresence conferencing solutions all served up with a heaping serving of David's healthy skepticism of the next new, new thing.  One of the best articles on the subject of telepresence conferencing that has been published in quite some time. Also contributing to this article were IMCCA Board Members: S. Ann Earon, Chairperson emeritus, Phil Keenan, and IMCCA Chairperson and Executive Director Carol Zelkin. ~ HSL

Here is an article on Vidyo from the always insightful Wainhouse Research Bulletin http://www.wainhouse.com/files/wrb-09/WRB-0904.pdf.  Also check out an excellent white paper on Vidyo and H.264 -SVC Here: http://www.vidyo.com/whitepaper_info.html