Dear Subscribers,

Welcome to the Telepresence Options Telegraph. The Human Productivity Lab's original newsletter, The Art of Productivity, has changed its name to the Telepresence Options Telegraph. It has an organized, new look, more infomation and the same great coverage of the telepresence revolution you expect from the Lab. You will find a summary of the latest telepresence news here at the top of newsletter, the five most important stories we have recently covered and some interesting, telepresence related stories, videos, and industry press releases at the bottom. Enjoy the new publication and tell your friends! (NOTE: If this newsletter does not render correctly in your mail client, you can view the same newsletter in your browser).

In this issue, we bring you some breaking news. This morning, HP Halo has announced an alliance with Marriott to make HP Halo telepresence systems publicly available at Marriott properties. HP Halo also announced the new customers AstraZeneca, Dow Chemical, and Toshiba, who are now available on the HP Halo Video Exchange Network (HVEN), available in 22 countries on 5 continents. The new announcements from HP do not end there; they now offer a new executive / small group telepresence system called The HP Halo Collaboration Center. For more information on this development, please read the developing story here:

HP Halo Announces Alliance with Marriott, New telepresence system, New Customers



In other news, US News and World Report covered telepresence in its March 10th issue and quoted our very own Howard Lichtman on the subject. To help our regular readers and the new readers we welcome from U.S. News and World Report better navigate their "Telepresence Options," we have put together a telepresence buyer's guide based on the work of the Human Productivity Lab's Telepresence Consulting Practice. This guide is tailored to senior executives trying understand the complex landscape of telepresence. To view the full guide, follow the link below:

Which Telepresence System is Best? - A Telepresence Buyers' Guide from the HPL.

Finally, we would like to welcome two new sponsors to Telepresence Options 2008, our multi-vendor survery of telepresence and effective visual collaboration: TANDBERG and Virtela.

U.S. News and World Report has published a superb article on telepresence by Liz Wolgemuth entitled: "Telepresence" Enhances Video Conferencing. In that article, Wolgemuth quotes me on a variety of telepresence topics. There was one quote which I felt needed to be expanded upon:

"Cisco competes with HP, Polycom, Teliris, and other entries in the telepresence market. The larger companies all make similar systems at slightly varying prices," says Howard Lichtman, who runs both a research consultancy, the Human Productivity Lab, and a publishing arm called Telepresence Options in Ashburn, Va.

I was referring to the current prominence of flat-panel display technology and the degree of realism among many of the leading telepresence group systems. The reality is that the differences between vendors is vast and competing standards, inter-networking strategies, unified communications strategies, vendor technology road-maps, and other factors make telepresence a science and art of trade-offs: realism vs. price, quality of the environment vs. replicability, features vs. ease-of-use, international reliability vs. cost, security vs. utility, existing offering vs. technology roadmap, etc.

The "slightly varying price points" is inaccurate because the price of telepresence is actually all over the board.  The base cost of a telepresence group system can run the gamut from $35,000 to $350,000+ but architectural make-ready, collaborative peripherals, lighting, furniture, and acoustical treatment for the room all add to the final price tag.  And we haven't even touched on the costs of telepresence network infrastructure, bandwidth, internal help desk and/or external managed services.

To provide some "News You Can Use" for the readers of U.S. News and World Report, I have taken an excerpt from our upcoming publication the Telepresence Options 2008 Yearbook. In this Telepresence Buyer's Guide preview, we address some of the questions senior executives and managers evaluating telepresence have about telepresence. (We offer expanded information as part of our consulting services, which you can learn more about at the Human Productivity Lab).

Today, I attended the launch of a telepresence classroom connecting the Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service to their satellite campus in Doha, Qatar.  The program connects an 18 seat Polycom RPX telepresence system in Doha with a slightly smaller version, located on the Georgetown campus in Washington, DC. 

With over 70,000+ internal telepresence meetings, an on-stage telepresence experience, and the launch of an inter-company telepresence business strategy, Cisco continues its innovation in the field. Howard Lichtman continues with the lost "San Diego Sessions," and sits down with Chuck Stucki, General Manager of the TelePresence Business Unit at Cisco. The two discuss how telepresence has impacted business effectiveness at Cisco, the ROI of telepresence, the opportunity for business to business (B2B) commerce and the coming of telepresence in the home. After the article there is an update on telepresence at Cisco.

Continuing with the lost "San Diego Sessions", Telepresence Options publisher Howard Lichtman had a chance to sit down with Aaron McCormack, CEO of BT Conferencing.  The two discuss telepresence conferencing, BT's portfolio of multiple telepresence conferencing solutions from Cisco, Polycom, Tandberg, and Teliris, the network and managed services that BT Conferencing provides to simplify deployment, the coming BT telepresence CoIN and the future of telepresence at BT.  After the transcript of the interview there is an update on telepresence at BT.  Sneak Peak... Coming Soon: Managed Services for Cisco TelePresence, Polycom, Tandberg, and an inter-networking solution to connect Cisco TelePresence customers to their vendors, joint venture partners, and customers on the BT Global network. 

Videoconferencing execs say sci-fi-esque offerings could move from concept to reality in a few years. Many are technically possible now, just not smooth or affordable enough for mass adoption. - An excellent article on Telepresence and videoconferencing from Jennifer Hagendorf Follett @ CMP Channel with a focus on what the channel partners and Value Added Resellers (VARs) of videoconferencing and telepresence need to keep current and ride the telepresence and videoconferencing wave.

Continuing with the lost "San Diego Sessions," from our Telepresence Options interview series, HSL talks with high performance video codec provider HaiVision.  The interview features President Francois Gariepy who discusses the company, the solutions he offers the telepresence industry and what folks in the Pro-AV community are doing with the HaiVision codec platforms.  After a transcript of the interview, HSL provides readers with an update on HaiVision

The Dangers of Videoconferencing
HARV Telepresence for Military Robots
Telepresence Tech CEO Duffie White on Telepresence
telx | vision: Mark Casey, CFN Intvw At Telx's MIA Event

Verizon Business Positioned in Analyst Firm's Leaders Quadrant for Asia/Pacific Network Service Providers 2007
Glowpoint Certifies HaiVision Telepresence Equipment
Polycom Brings Telepresence Solution To India
TANDBERG Product Innovation Recognized by VON Magazine
Telx Announces the 2008 Customer Business Exchange (CBX)

Verizon moving to 100Gbps network in 2009
Telx Names Durvasula Chief Business Officer
How to future-proof your videoconferencing gear without breaking your wallet
'Telepresence' Enhances Video Conferencing
Cisco Legal Team Pioneers Business Communication Technology

Continuing coverage of the industry can be obtained through this newsletter, the Telepresence Options website, or our upcoming publication, The Telepresence Options 2008 Yearbook (sign up here to receive a free hard copy via snail mail when it is released this summer). Note that the HPL's signature newsletter, The Art of Productivity, has been re-branded as the Telepresence Options Telegraph. All future newsletters will come from Telepresence Options. Please adjust your spam filters accordingly. Telepresence Options is a publication of the Human Productivity Lab. Our apologies for any confusion.

The next issue of the Telepresence Options Telegraph will feature a story that explains the benefits telepresence offers as the dollar declines versus other currencies (a topic the Lab covered in its last major paper on the future of telepresence). The article will fully explain why international business travel increases in price as the dollar falls, why smart companies should invest in telepresence and how that investment will better enable those companies to compete as the dollar continues its collapse.