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Cisco Demos Public Rooms For Telepresence
CWmike writes "Matt Hamblen reports that Cisco Systems Inc. has announced the first telepresence videoconferencing rooms available for public use. It demonstrated the technology simultaneously in four locations in India, the US and the UK Three of the four demonstration sites were retrofitted rooms in Taj Hotels in London, Bangalore, India and Boston. The luxury hotel chain will build the videoconferencing rooms for business and guest use at rates starting at $400 an hour in the Boston location. Cisco said prices will vary from $299 to $899 an hour at various locations globally, depending on the number of users. The rooms can accommodate from one to 18 people."
At those costs, it is cheaper to fly out and meet in person.
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Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Isn't this just videoconferencing, which Kinko's has offered for years?
Telepresence is a very cool technology. It is not just another video teleconference system. Anyone who has experienced it in person will be able to explain why it is not just another VTC. I visited the Cisco Office in Charlotte not too long ago and was able to experience a telepresence conference with Cisco in Research Triangle Park. It really is quite amazing. Yes, it is expensive but if you see it yourself in person you will understand why. It seems like a pretty good idea for cisco to have this system setup in hotels and other locations where it can be rented for corporations and other uses. In fact, I can see where this could be used as a solution for conferences that would normally require a lot of travel. Instead, a small or medium size company that has an office in Atlanta and another office in Denver can simply rent time in a telepresence room at a hotel in atlanta and then in denver and probably still make it a lot cheaper than flying people half way across the country esp with airline tickets and fuel costs as high as they are right now. Pretty cool stuff.
One additional note. While I was at the Cisco office in Charlotte the office staff there told me that since they installed the telepresence system, Cisco has cut out virtually all travel. They can do that simply because the telepresence experience is so good that there is not much reason to travel. Also, of course the telepresence system is quite expensive so they had to compensate for that somewhere.