Johnny Mar 23, 2009

David,

Telepresence as a communication concept deserves to be used by everybody, as you stated above.

Since you ask how we can get there, I do have a couple of ideas.

- Stop positioning it for top executives only.
- Lower the price or…
- Make a more affordable “peoples version”. Making a solid business case for general use will become much easier then.
- make sure the product can co-exist and/or integrate with other UC solutions and devices from other vendors
- Make it more plug-and-play (easier to get started)

I have tried yours a few times and it is a great product. 

KR

James Corbett Mar 23, 2009

When I first saw Cisco Telepresence in action two years ago it inspired me to setup an organization to bring low-end (affordable) telepresence (i.e. video-calling) to the elderly, disabled and other socially disadvantages groups here in Ireland. Thankfully my project won the backing of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and we’re currently rolling out a pilot program putting our systems in place at nursing homes and respite centers. Obviously we’re aiming to get our services to elderly people living alone in rural areas eventually.

Sadly the number of suicides among lonely elderly is a growing problem but we believe that video-calling, and eventually (when it’s affordable) can do much to alleviate the issues.

Vinayakan Aiyer Mar 25, 2009

I totally understand your situation....it is perhaps ignorance that people have associated TelePresence with elitism. Cisco should consider educating the masses with facts, data and the like.

Sometime ago, I read “the only disadvantage of using TelePresence is that, you can’t shake hands”. Super stuff!

Often your CEO has gone in the open media and talked about how good the product is. Though it is a great endorsement, but given Mr. Chambers’s stature, Cisco will have enormous amount of trouble shedding the ‘elitism’ surrounding TelePresence (if he doesn’t stop). TelePresence is a good product. Period.

I guess, Cisco is a leader in this space and given the current economic situation your product will gain great amount of traction if you do a few things right. I suggest, begin by looking at the Travel Management Company (TMC) Cisco is using to manage its airline negotiations. If it is a business travel industry expert like American Express, even better! Partnering with a TMC will give access to high quality business travel data of corporates. The quality, length and breadth of data a TMC will have will enable Cisco to deliver a more focused/incisive sales pitch. Leverage the relationship you have with a TMC to put a number to your story….tell the companies that ‘investing’ in a TelePresence unit will pay for itself.

Every company’s CFO knows, air travel is the biggest pie of business travel and video-conferencing is a tool that will directly reduce this component. My idea is based on one fact - Business Travel volume has grown over the years except for economic downturns. There are more airports, more TMCs, more planes in the sky and more travelers. Year after year these numbers have increased and will grow further as globalization pushes on. And, travel will continue to grow as the businesses move to more of relationship based selling over any other modes of selling into newer, unexplored markets. Same goes for video-conferencing - it has grown year after year and that creates room for money to be spent on innovation and the betterment of the product. To state the obvious, TelePresence may not eliminate travel completely but it sure has the potential to make every CFO do a rethink and look at the money spent by employees on company travel.

Other points that may be considered in messaging (not sure if Cisco already does it):
TelePresence leaves less carbon footprint compared to any other mode of company travel.
TelePresence enhances efficiency of employees by eliminating the time spent by them in travel.

Hope you find the above text useful. Please feel free to reach out to me...I will be more than happy to share more of my thoughts.

Carlos Orozco Apr 7, 2009

In Emerging Markets the real cost is not the TP hardware but the WAN costs associated in its operation.

The average MPLS for a branch office in LATAM is around 512kbps and 1Mbps for really big offices, and most IT managers are trying to cut those expenses migrating to ADSL even when it is not reliable for critical business operation.

The Telepresence rooms Ive seen are connected using another link with a pay-per-use contract that still insanely expensive but with that schema companies just pay the 4-5 hours/day and wont open it for regular employees if it will cost the company.

To increase the use of TP in emerging countries what I think you can do is work with the SP providers to offer more affordable WAN links to be used with this technology.

Satoshi Takano May 17, 2009

Thanks for your insight.  I have been taking the exact same approach to positioning Cisco TelePresence.

The decision makers typically are executives from a business ROI perspective, but the actual end users are middle managers.

In fact, I believe that the TP-500 is the device that should be in an executives’ office so they won’t have to leave their office to conduct meetings.

The TP-3000 is the collaboration tool of choice, but if the price tag is too rich, then the TP-1300 would be something that I would very highly support.

Each TP has a place and niche. Cisco needs to be very clear on how to position each of the units, as more models become available in the future.

Bob Jul 24, 2009

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