Cisco Steps Into Telepresence With New HD Videoconferencing Line

The TelePresence launch is among the first rollouts of the vendor's new fiscal year to fully embrace that strategy. The portfolio is designated by Cisco as an "emerging technology," a category of products that historically have not been offered immediately through partners. With this launch, however, Cisco has selected 24 channel partners to train and authorize for deployment of TelePresence solutions—including 11 in North America—in what Peres said is a controlled, deliberate distribution strategy.

A broader number of channel partners eventually will be added to the mix, he said. "I see over time that [the product line] will move to most of our partners who sell unified communications," he said.

Cisco also has tapped several channel partners for rollouts of TelePresence rooms for its own use. Thus far, 20 Cisco sites have been deployed, along with five customer field trials. Cisco intends to roll out 110 sites internally by August.

To be sure, the product line to start is focused on large enterprises and solution providers with the depth of skills to service them.

The Cisco TelePresence Meeting portfolio, which was in development for two years, initially includes two models: TelePresence 3000, a full-room solution for 12 participants that includes three 65-inch high-definition plasma screens and carries a $299,000 price tag; and the single-screen TelePresence 1000 for smaller meetings that comes in more modestly at $79,000. Both are scheduled for availability in December.

With the TelePresence 3000, solution providers will be deploying a "conference room in a box" that includes everything from the networking and videoconferencing pieces to lighting, audio and even the conference table itself. Partners will be performing network and room-readiness assessments to ensure that their deployments meet the stringent specifications required for a successful rollout, looking at pieces such as acoustics, ambient light and even the paint color on the walls, Peres said.

Cisco predicts that every $1 spent on the TelePresence technology will generate an additional $7 in product pullthrough as customers upgrade their network and bandwidth capacity to meet the heavy demands of high-definition videoconferencing. Several channel partners said early indications show that figure to be too high, though most said thus far they have targeted customers they know already have the prerequisite infrastructure and bandwidth requirements in place.

High cost and high bandwidth requirements are two of the challenges that could keep customers from buying into telepresence solutions, Cisco solution providers said. Cisco is certifying several service providers, including AT&T and Verizon, as carriers that can provide the quality of service required to support TelePresence deployments.

Cisco also has to contend with its competitors. HP, the biggest name in the market aside from Cisco, has been installing its Halo systems for nearly a year and counts companies such as Advanced Micro Devices and PepsiCo among its clients. Halo includes recently launched multipoint capabilities that enable multiple locations to join in a single conference call, a feature Cisco doesn't plan to add until the second half of this fiscal year. HP sells its room systems for $425,000, plus an additional $18,000 per month for managed network services.

For now, however, Halo is a direct play for HP, though the company plans to open the product line to the channel over the next year as the portfolio comes downstream, said Ken Crangle, general manager of the Halo division at HP, Palo Alto, Calif.

Some solution providers expressed doubt that products from Cisco or HP will find a strong following because they don't interoperate with systems from other vendors. "You have hundreds of thousands of systems out there, and [Cisco's product line] won't be able to talk to one of them," said Charlie Macli, senior vice president at IVCi, a videoconferencing solution provider in Hauppauge, N.Y.

Cisco partners argued that its TelePresence offering is so far superior, customers won't go back to legacy systems. "Once they experience what TelePresence gets them, they'll understand," said Gene Cowden, executive vice president of Presidio, Colmar, Pa. "It's like comparing traveling on a train vs. a jet plane. It's a great leap forward."