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Observations on technology trends from the latest
conferences and seminars.
In This
Edition:
· Have you heard the one about the three blind men and the
elephant?
· The top of the top of the pyramid
· Deja-vu all over again
I believe the old fable goes something like this: Three
blind men are taken to an elephant and asked to touch it and
describe it. The first says, "an elephant is a long, curved,
smooth pointy thing." The second says "an elephant is an
enormous, rough, leathery thing." The third thinks they're
both crazy as he knows that an elephant is "a long, thin
thing like a piece of rope that is constantly whipping
around."
My recent visit to the first ever Telepresence World
Conference in San Diego reminded me of that story.
Individuals and firms that I have deep respect for not only
refused to define the space but actually openly talked about
it in different terms and from varying perspectives. I'm not
sure if I left more educated or more confused.
The leaders of Polycom, Teliris, BT and Cisco provided
keynote presentations on the first morning. Bob Haggerty,
CEO of Polycom chose to speak about the history of
collaborative communication, drawing parallels between
ancient Roman armies and the offices of today. Marc
Trachetnberg of Teliris spoke with a much more abstract
perspective, describing how effective communication
technologies must be "inert" - as in not effecting the
communication in any way. He used a musical example to show
how we are each affected by the content as long as the
context is neutral. Aaron McCormack, the CEO of BT spoke
about dynamics of communications and connectivity and BT's
efforts in becoming carbon neutral. Then Chuck Stucki, the
VP and GM of Cisco TelePresence systems described how
telepresence was changing the way Cisco and its customers do
business.
While each spoke eloquently it's hard to generalize their
message because most of the points were very subtle and the
presentations were quite honestly all over the place. The
only one of the four to directly address his firm's specific
products was Mr. Stucki. Unfortunately though, after
mentioning how terrific Telepresence was, he went on to
provide multiple examples of traditional video conferencing
applications - like connecting to meetings from his home
office so he could spend more time with his family. (A
number of the subsequent presenters made the point that they
had been doing this for years as it has nothing to do with
Telepresence.)
The conference also had demo suites of the immersive
offerings of many of the larger manufacturers in the space.
Polycom, Cisco, Teliris, Telanetix and DVE set-up their
systems for attendees to take "test flights". DVE's
demonstration was particularly remarkable, revealing their
first ever "Tele- Immersion Room" which showed what they
described as "3-D holographic appearing images of
participants in perfect HD." The system used a very large,
angled reflective surface to show a remote participant
superimposed on the other side of a traditional conference
table, with the camera position shooting through the
reflection for perfect eye-lines. (Think TelePrompTer on
steroids.) Everyone who saw it left very impressed. Many
though questioned it's practicality at more than double the
cost of every other telepresence product on the market and
with an image produced by uncompressed (no codec) video.
With all the other Telepresence products already carving out
only the very top percent of the conferencing market
pyramid, one wonders how measurable a further fraction of
that is. (If telepresence is the corporate jet this is the
corporate space shuttle.) No one disagreed that it was the
coolest thing at the conference.
The vast majority of the attendees at Telepresence World
were people already involved in the conferencing industry -
generously one true customer for about every 10 vendors - so
this definitely did not turn out to be a direct selling
opportunity for the sponsors. The greater goal should have
been the legitimizing of the telepresence space. One can
easily argue that this goal was achieved as soon as the
gathering took place. Personally though, I'm sad that
industry leaders did not take the opportunity to place some
definition around the space. Some of the manufacturers
riding the telepresence wave and hype clearly do not have
products that qualify as immersive. Others have immersive
systems with so many restrictions and flaws that they should
be embarrassed to use the term. I have this sense of deja-vu
being reminded of the video conferencing manufacturers 15
years ago making promises that they knew could not be
delivered. How soon after a firm spends a million bucks on a
few telepresence rooms do they discover that they can't
always connect to other firms, can't always connect to
traditional video conference systems, can't always display
their ad campaigns or power-points in the room, etc? How
soon after that set-back to we begin to move forward again?
A View From The Road is written by David Danto. David has
spent 29 years in the audio visual and broadcasting
industries. He has designed facilities for firms such as
AT&T, Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan Stanley and NYU. He is
currently the Director of Global Multimedia Engineering for
Lehman Brothers and the IMCCA's Director of Emerging
Technology. Email David at David.Danto.IMCCA@Danto.com
About IMCCA
The Interactive Multimedia & Collaborative Communications
Alliance (IMCCA) is a not-for-profit user application and
industry focused association with membership comprised of
service and product providers, consultants, and users.
Members benefit from the understanding and the use of
various interactive and collaborative communications
technologies in their professional and everyday lives.
Views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect
the opinion or policy of the IMCCA.
For further information please contact Carol Zelkin, IMCCA
Executive Director, at 516-818- 8184 or czelkin@imcca.org.
Visit the IMCCA web site at www.imcca.org
Carol Zelkin
Executive Director
Email czelkin@imcca.org
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