Join Interactive Media Strategies for an inside look at the world of corporate video adoption. 
Receive daily CN Alert emails with breaking headlines in the conferencing industry. Click here for this free service.
What's the Real Cost of Telepresence?
TeleSpan’s Elliot Gold has published a comprehensive review of many telepresence offerings, and, he says, even compared the different manufacturers’ sales to date, their products features, equipment and installation costs, as well as monthly charges. We still don't understand what the difference is between videoconferencing and telepresence and we've even seen arguments at trade conferences over what's "immersive" and what's not. Oh boy, that's a doozy. Vendors claiming they provide better "illusions" than the next. Let the subjectivity begin. If anyone can adequately answer our original question, "From an end-users perspective, what's the difference between videoconferencing and telepresence?" we will award $1,000,000,000 to this person.
Don't get us wrong: we're fans of high-end-videoconferencing-telepresence-systems and believe such technology (with ever declining prices and product improvements) is the wave of the future. When the future comes, entire walls will be pixelated and 3D presence will also emerge, and we wonder, What will the industry call this? but we digress.
Until we get the answer to the aformentioned billion dollar question, you can find analysis of the telepresence market that's downloadable for free on TeleSpan's website.
July 3, 2007