'Virtual Margaret' supports San Jose-based Cisco VP from Texas via telepresence

Either they’re watching too much “Star Trek” over at Cisco’s Emerging Markets Technology Group, or a good assistant is just really hard to find in Silicon Valley.

See related stories: Cisco looks to push high-end IP video

HP and Cisco travel separate paths to high-end, high-speed video communications

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Either they’re watching too much “Star Trek” over at Cisco’s Emerging Markets Technology Group, or a good assistant is just really hard to find in Silicon Valley.

See related stories: Cisco looks to push high-end IP video

HP and Cisco travel separate paths to high-end, high-speed video communications

An early production test for Cisco’s TelePresence 1000 system came earlier this year at the same time Margaret Hooshmand, a Cisco administrative assistant, had some bad news for her boss: she was moving to Richardson, Texas from San Jose. Hooshmand happened to be the longtime assistant to Marthin DeBeer, vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Emerging Markets Technology Group, which includes the new video communications products. Instead of finding a new assistant, DeBeer had TelePresence 1000 units —one-one-one, high-end video conferencing systems — set up in San Jose and Richardson.

“[Margaret] didn’t want to lose her job, but she had to move,” says Randy Harrell, director of product marketing for Cisco’s TelePresence group. “So we dressed up her cube, and put the CTS 1000 right where [everyone in the office] used to walk by,” he says. “She's got pictures of her daughter and family sitting right there on a desk in San Jose. She’s got a plant. And she's got a similar [setup] on the other side in Texas.”

The system uses two 65-inch high-definition plasma displays and IP video cameras sit at either end of the connection, making each person appear life-size; low-latency audio and video add to the illusion that the two people are in close proximity.

The setup was made to look as if Hooshmand was sitting in the cube, with the plasma display framing a life-size, real-time video image of her head. Harrell says DeBeer’s phone and calendar software are also liked to his Hooshmand's desktop over Cisco’s internal network.

“None of the dynamics have changes as to how she supports Marthin DeBeer,” Harrell says. “His phone rings, you watch her pick it up and say, ‘Marthin DeBeer’s office.’ They talk to each other through this thing. Even I'm used to it now; I walk up and talk to virtual Margaret all the time.”