DISCOVER TELEPRESENCE

If you didnt get a chance to dial in for the Frost & Sullivan Telepresence Challenge, we recorded it here. All the major players participated, with the exception of Cisco, so we heard from Joe Sigrist from Polycom, Hakon Dahle from Tandberg, Aaron McCormack from BT, and Ken Krangle from HP and obviously myself representing Teliris.

Each of the speakers got 2 1/2 minutes for each question, which requires some level of succinctness and almost every time they chose to focus on the idea that high definition resolution is paramount to having a true telepresence experience. This theme stuck out in my mind as a huge misconception in the telepresence industry and my fear is that this misguided thinking will trickle down to prospects and customers as they make decisions of what they can and cant live without. Now obviously seeing non-verbal cues, facial expressions etc is important, but HD images do NOT make or break telepresence. As I’ve said before, and if you listen to yesterday’s roundtable you will hear it from me again – a telepresence experience does not need to be in HD! We have several customers that are using standard definition and still experience the same immersive feel that our HD customers do. A telepresence experience is NOT about HD vs. SD, its about creating an environment where the technology is wrapped around the customer’s needs, one that allows for accurate eye lines and reliability. These are the components of telepresence – not HD or SD resolution – that if taken away detract from a true experience that consistently cuts travel and boosts productivity.