Cisco TelePresence celebrates its second birthday this month but Microsoft is not wishing it a happy birthday. Instead, Moz Hussain, director of product management writing in the Microsoft Unified Communications blog criticizes Cisco TelePresence System 500 launched in May for telecommuters or employees of a midsize business, costing $34,000, as too expensive. “I just don’t believe you get mass adoption when the price point evokes the question “should I buy this or the helicopter?”, quips Hussain in the blog. “The market is limited to literally a few hundred units. Units like the Polycom HDX 4000, for example, have been around for years at a fraction of the price.”
Hussain points to Microsoft RoundTable priced at between $3,000 and $4,000, of which Hussain claims Microsoft has shipped thousands of units since its launch in October 2007. “For the price of two personal telepresence units which would enable two executives to talk to one another, customers can buy 20+ RoundTables, enabling a much larger number of people in remote offices to communicate and collaborate more effectively, while reducing travel costs.”
Hussain also makes an interesting note about interoperability. “Finally, to make a communication tool useful and impactful, you have to make it interoperate with common legacy equipment. This includes colleagues on Tandberg or Polycom systems, which account for over 75% of the installed base of video conferencing today. Or federated customers and partners for example. The lack of interoperability makes the system an isolated island in a customers’ broader environment. If you are going to go for a telepresence solution, you should consider systems that interop with broader installed base, such the Tandberg Experia or the Polycom RPX for example.”
On the price-point argument, it would be interesting to get Hussain’s view on Cisco’s work to produce a $1,000 consumer-grade telepresence system that is said to launch at CES in January.
Related reading:
Cisco vs. Microsoft: Now videoconferencing is the battle turf
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