On October 23, 2006, Cisco, a world leader in network infrastructure and applications, announced its entry into the telepresence technology arena with the “Cisco TelePresence Meeting Solution,” a remarkable product that creates an in-person meeting experience utilizing an efficient 10mbps to 12 mbps of bandwidth for a typical 4 to 12 person conference, while still sharing network traffic across the enterprise. In November of 2006, Cisco and the Oakland Athletics revealed their collaborative efforts to build the world’s most technologically sophisticated baseball park in Fremont, California, to be named, appropriately, Cisco Park. And, in January of 2007, Cisco released its new Digital Signage System, a solution for managing and distributing live and/or prerecorded digital media on networked displays.

With these three announcements, Cisco, led for the past 12 years by CEO John Chambers, is poised to transform the way humans communicate with each other and our relationship to events worldwide. The significance of this news is not limited to the conference board room, sports park, or colorful digital billboard, but extends to how business and social relationships, along with our access to entertainment and news, will change in the future.
 
According to Randy Harrell, Director of Product Marketing for Cisco’s TelePresence Systems Business Unit, “We are at the beginning of a journey” that will redefine how society functions and interacts. In the case of telepresence, Harrell says that while the traditional return-on-investment rationales such as corporate travel and expense reduction are valid, the number one benefit of utilizing telepresence in the business world will be “putting the executives and company representatives in front of the customer” to offer guidance, discuss implementations, negotiate, and cement deals. Cisco currently has 45 telepresence end-point installations globally but expects 120 sites to be functional by the end of July 2007 in areas as remote as Moscow, China, and South America. He points out that multi-national corporations expanding to less-industrialized parts of the world will no longer have to worry about finding qualified support and management personnel to relocate to these areas since knowledgeable staff can be available 24 hours a day via telepresence. Already, some Cisco executives have telepresence systems installed at their homes so that they and their unique expertise can be available to customers around the world without the time lost to travel.

Harrell notes that Cisco’s goal is to “drive telepresence to the telephone model,” where infrastructure and ease of operation put telepresence technology on par with other utilities like lighting, heating, or the phone. The integration with the Cisco Unified Communications Manager (formerly called Call Manager), which “gives scheduling and call launch back to the user” is at the center of this drive. Unlike conventional video conferencing systems, which are so complex and unreliable that each meeting usually requires IT intervention, Communications Manager combines scheduling, connectivity, and contact into an easy-to-use, one button interface that makes calendaring and call launch as straightforward as operating a phone. Communications Manager integrates with traditional calendaring software like Outlook or Groupware with Session Initiated Protocols (SIP) to seamlessly link traditional phones, legacy video conferencing systems, and voice-over IP, multimedia, and presence-based applications.

Cisco's Digital Signage, which enables enterprises to publish, play back, and manage digital media on a network of digital plasma or LCD displays, will also change the way we do business. The system comprises the Digital Media Manager, which offers web-based management of the display network, and the Digital Media Player, a small box that attaches to the display and plays rich media, including mpeg and high definition video files from the network.

With Digital Signage, announcements can be automatically distributed and updated almost instantaneously over networked displays. Cisco’s vision is to make the signage intelligent, meaning that it can display information based on local feedback. For example, a customer in a store might take a product up to an LCD kiosk and, based on the products’ RFID, the screen would display video support or installation advice for the specific make and model of the device, providing an unsurpassed level of customer intimacy in the retail environment.

Plans are already underway to use this new digital signage technology at the proposed Oakland A’s ballpark in Fremont, CA. Patrons could call up player stats and run instant replays at the touch of a button. Displays could direct patrons to use the least congested exits based on attendee traffic patterns. If you would prefer to spend part of the game dining at an onsite restaurant or having drinks with friends at the ball park bar, telepresence technology would allow you to keep up with the game by displaying the action in high-definition on life-sized screens with surround sound audio.


Telepresence Football Hospitality Suite 

In the future, Harrell sees these two technologies creating opportunities for entertainment and socializing anywhere in the world. By using a telepresence technology and digital media streaming, virtual hospitality venues could host the Kentucky Derby in the morning, a baseball game in the afternoon, and Nascar racing in the evening, depending on customer interests. Harrell predicts that in five years, virtual hospitality rooms may even be available for installation in the home, so that people can experience their favorite sport, or even a theatrical play or museum exhibit as if they were there, without ever leaving their house. It may even be possible for families living on two different continents to have dinner together on a virtual third continent, just as if they were in the same room.

Central to the success of all these new applications is Cisco’s comprehensive solution architecture and its commitment to its customers. Cisco envisions a future where networked elements can be interconnected and intermixed with relative freedom in a highly flexible infrastructure. And the best part? All of this technology will be nearly transparent to the customer, allowing them to focus on content rather than process. Observes Harrell, “Quality and simplicity are everything to the user.”