Wow, there’s been a lot of hoopla this week surrounding Cisco’s announcement of its new telepresence offerings, the aptly named TelePresence 1000 and TelePresence 3000 systems. Did Cisco invent the technology? Or did was the one I saw in use at 3Com a few years ago a dream? Or the system that Polycom is touting? What about Teliris? HP Halo?
I know, it’s Cisco and anything they do is big news, but telepresence is not new and it’s not something the majority of people are going to use. Heck, most people don’t even use desktop or even room video conferencing. Does Cisco think there will be a huge demand for the multi-thousand dollar systems that pretty much can talk to one another and no one else? For those that might be looking for a telepresence system but don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend, one might want to check out Telanetix of San Diego. I visited with them late last month while on the West Coast for DEMOFall 2006. The Telanetix system uses four big LCD TVs – two for video and two for data – and small endoscopic cameras modified for video conferencing. The camera sit discretely in the center of the displays between two of the video screens. You hardly notice them and don’t feel as if you’re on camera. What’s also cool is that system runs over SIP and can be used to call non-Telanetix systems – though you don’t get the full video effect. If you don’t want to break the bank, check out the Telanetix offerings.
