Telepresence & the Economy
January 22, 2009
We are all asking, and being asked, the same question – whether you lead a company, work for a corporation or even if you are self employed – everyone wants to know how others are faring in the economic hardships facing the world today. Certainly, we are all hopeful as we watched the inauguration of a new US president that things will turn around, but it doesn’t stop us as professionals in all sorts of businesses to hunker down, lay low and plan for the possibility of a long extension of an already long downturn. The interesting thing is that some assume that telepresence initiatives might be cut back as companies decrease capital expenditures. I decided to post about it because thats the thing about telepresence – we are in the business of SAVING companies money and finally that core fact has been understood and embraced!
Two years ago, I might have been writing something a little different, but today the benefits of telepresence are becoming so widely known that as companies are forced to figure out plans to accomplish bigger initiatives with fewer resources, they are turning to telepresence as an invaluable tool to help them collaborate more often, and without the financial expense and time intensive burden of traveling. I know what you are thinking right now, and I agree, what CEO ISN’T trying to get away with saying the economy hasn’t affected their business? But come on, would I really write a post about it? Wouldn’t I simply stay quiet if I didn’t have a point to make? Ok, ok, so I must admit I don’t often stay quiet … so here it is, telepresence is among an elite group of technologies that are CRUCIAL for companies of all sizes to compete in a global market, especially when companies in that market are making cuts by the millions. Click here and listen up for some stats on current customer usage, sales cycles and commentary that will get even the biggest skeptic to take a closer look.
February 9, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Congratulations on the new funding Teliris!
L2
May 7, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Hi Marc:
Enjoy your posts. I’m thinking about personal telepresence in the home. That is, something that can be used in the office for work, in the living room to catch up with remote family, virtually watch a sporting event (no, not Manchester United!), etc.
How does a multi-room scenario–in some cases with existing audio from the TV broadcast–affect your design criteria?
FYI, I represent some pretty monster residential networks where 5-15 Mbps (yes, end-to-end) is no problem.
Cheers.
May 13, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Hi Mark. I’m glad you enjoy my posts and thanks for reaching out to Teliris. Teliris has been thinking along the same lines … so I congratulate you on your foresight. I believe telepresence will become a ubiquitous business tool in next few years by continuing to enable companies to decrease travel expenses, enhance employee productivity and collaboration, ensure business continuity in cases where travel is restricted or impossible, restore work-life balance to employees who travel frequently, and help customers to make real, measurable reductions to their carbon footprint. The ‘bleed’ from this ubiquity will clearly find its way into the home as businesses empower teleworkers and further increase collaboration amongst remote, distributed teams. Once in the home and driven by Metcalf’s Law, telepresence will be used for new applications that few in the industry are able to fully envision today. It’s important to keep in mind that the common platform upon which all Teliris Telepresence solutions are designed has no inherent limitations with multi-room, multi-source audio integration. We have definitely thought a great deal about the deployment options within such situations! I can’t divulge too much information now on Teliris’ plans to enable telepresence ubiquity but please pay close attention to our upcoming sixth-generation solution launch scheduled for June 17 at InfoComm in Orlando Florida.
May 14, 2009 at 11:50 am
Marc,
please let me offer a little counsel from a PR POV, you don’t need to say that your products aren’t other’s. By mentioning Microsoft or Cisco (or even HP) you give them mention and significance as a brand that they don’t need. Your products stand on their own merit and don’t need to be defended that they don’t belong to others. I say this as an interested party who believes in the power of smaller firms to develop better products and to support the products better.
May 19, 2009 at 10:00 am
Thanks for the advice John. I agree with your assertion that smaller companies develop superior products and do so at a much more rapid pace than larger companies. This is certainly true in the case of Teliris. Since our inception 10 years ago, we have consistently led the telepresence industry in setting down the milestones by which our competitors, and the larger market, are measured and defined. Our media and public relations activities are focused on getting this message out. Occasionally, some less informed folks confuse our innovative solutions with those of our partners or competitors. In such situations, it has been my experience that clearly stating the superiority of Teliris solutions is helpful to clear up these mistaken beliefs. We love compeitition and have no issues going head-to-head with our competitors in any arena. I always appreciate the input. Keep it coming!!
August 6, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Marc: Telepresence and other digital collaboration technologies can create oceans of records, which could be relevant for lawsuits, investigations and internal control. As the technologies grow more popular, enterprises must evaluate how to address these massive records under retention policies. Yet that issue is by no means a deterrent to the adoption of telepresence. In fact, good records are valuable! –Ben http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/02/collaboration-e-discovery-and-record.html