I have been watching the Cisco Public Telepresence Site for some time now to see if anything new would come out. But since it has gone up there has been little in updates, little updates of content and new sites. As we all remember Cisco gave the first public Telepresence suites to Tata Communications, why I am not sure and no one can really tell me. I would have thought that Cisco would have picked a large partner in the USA to feature as its partner, but that was not to be as it seems everything Cisco does goes to India.
At this time there are 2 USA Sites, 1 England Site and 6 in India. There was an announcement about Malaysia I read, but that has not yet made it on to the Cisco web site. Cisco said at one time that they wanted it be like Starbucks, one on every corner. But with the recent loss to Polycom in the Regus deal, could this stall the Public Suites? Well if the prices below stay the same then they are going to sink.
Cisco Public Telepresence Suites Costs and room availability vary based on duration, location, and planned group size.
|
Group size |
Cost per hour per public location |
|
2 people |
US$299 |
|
Up to 6 people |
US$499 |
|
Up to 18 people |
US$899 |
The rumors have been floating around and I have heard many of them out at Interop that Cisco has dropped the price down to 100k for the top of the line telepresence system to move them. I have not confirmed this with Cisco as they did not return my emails. But if it is true then Cisco is getting the hint and this could reduce the initial cost to open a Public Suite. This would mean lower cost to businesses who want to use it, but for the general public is it still way over priced.
Cisco really needs to get the price down to $50 for 2 people, 6 people $150 and $400 for 18 people. This would be more realistic for the general public also. These prices would mean that Cisco still needs to bring the price down for the initial set up and then the network cost. I would not be surprised if Polycom comes out with their own version of a public suite with these low prices. Why you ask? Cisco is too proud to drop prices like this and say we were wrong about our initial pricing.
My company was looking at joining Cisco in this program, but they need to drop the pricing down before we would do it. You need to be able to make money and with the current prices, I don’t see how.
What do you think about these new prices that I have proposed for Cisco? If these were the prices would you be more opt to use a Public Telepresence Suite?
