Cisco Telepresence Keeps Businesses Moving Even in Volcano Fallouts

In addition to the new airport shut downs, the volcano, which began vomiting a poisonous plume of ash clouds on April 14, stranded the main stream of flights to, from, and inside the European continent for a total of five days. So how can we keep our businesses moving forward if natural disasters and events outside our control portend to bring them to an abrupt stop?

Many people are starting to depend on technologies like Cisco telepresence, video conferencing, and Cisco WebEx as a method to keep going on with their everyday business regardless of outside events.

Among a lot of people who are turning to Cisco TelePresence is a CEO of a greenhouse reporting enterprise. The volcano prohibited this CEO from traveling to Beijing, China from London, UK to interview three important job applicants. So this CEO decided to interview the applicants from his London UK office by using Cisco TelePresence and ended up hiring one of these applicants for a key position in his company.

“I appreciate now that we can even employ someone remotely,” this CEO says. “That’s pretty awesome and revolutionary.”

Cisco’s own officials have taken advantage of Cisco telepresence when they were grounded by this Icelandic volcano eruption.

As fate would decide, the Senior Vice President of Cisco Emerging Technologies Business Group Marthin De Beer was scheduled to travel from San Jose, California to Oslo, Norway to take part in a press conference broadcasting that Cisco had finished its voluntary offer for acquiring TANDBERG.

When De Beer’s flight was annulled due to the volcanic ash clouds, he and Fredrik Halvorsen, the senior vice president of Cisco TelePresence Technology Group and previously TANDBERG CEO, held a simulated press conference together by utilizing Cisco TelePresence and TANDBERG paraphernalia.

“I would have really liked to have been in Europe with you people,” he said during the session, as recounted by the premier international news organization AFP. “But thanks to Cisco telepresence, we are still able to do this, even though it is two o clock in the morning here and I am not aware of how we can fix that.”

Just time will prove whether the Icelandic volcano will mark an important revolution in how enterprises bounce back after an unforeseen event in time. One thing is for sure, though. In a progressively interconnected international economy, and our rising dependency on just-in-time supply chains, building a robust plan for business continuousness in the face of unanticipated events has never been more critical.

“As the world (has) witnessed earthquakes, the H1N1 virus epidemic, and other natural disasters outside human control, it has really made enterprises stop to brain storm how they can deploy technology to build a viable business model,” De Beer told the news agency AFP.

One of the remedial steps which enterprises can take now, before the next unforeseen event happens, is to test-drive Cisco telepresence, video conferencing collaboration, and other similar technologies. Cisco’s Meeting on Us program supplies you with a complimentary on the house Cisco TelePresence meeting, while the TANDBERG FlyFree program offers you a free of cost video conferencing meeting. You are also able to sign up for a free 14-days Cisco WebEx trial, as well.

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Cisco TelePresence Becomes the New Manifestation of Managed Services

Intercompany: Size Matters. One of the crucial components of this public announcement is the” Intercompany” ability. An intercompany Cisco TelePresence network service, which allows clients to preserve close contact with their protracted supply chain or communities of interest, has the latent potential to revolutionize businesses. Additionally, as more and more people utilize a network service –like Telephony, Internet, Web 2.0 social networking, or Intercompany Cisco TelePresence, the more valued the service becomes.

Increased value entices more users, ensuring a positive feedback loop and sustained usage expansion and growth –this is called the “Network Effect “. It is no small coincidence or wonder that the New AT&T shares this vision with its partner Cisco; as per Wikipedia, the network effect was presented in the 1908 annual report by the then AT&T President Theodore Vail — nearly 100 years ago! and now IP DNA meets network DNA, fitting anniversary event.

Talking of IP DNA, this brings me to the networking and Internet innovator, Robert Metcalfe and his commandment. In this situation it stimulates: “The value of intercompany Cisco TelePresence – and the network service which makes it conceivable – can be expected to go up not linearly, but in ratio to the square of the quantity of users. “As more companies utilize intercompany Cisco TelePresence, its value for the user and for the provider increases. This is definitely true as the network reaches its critical mass.

AT&T Managed TelePresence Solution will be obtainable in the second half of 2008 with reach to 23 nations all over the world. Additional country availability is planned for the year 2009. Early trials of the solution are happening now.

Managed Telepresence: “Managed” Matters. Managed business services provide dependability, high availability and self-assurance. Via Cisco TelePresence, enterprise clients are able to connect with each other, partners and suppliers via this super scalable and protected solution across the globe. The addition of an ongoing managed service facet to TelePresence delivers sureness that the experience will be provided. The AT&T solution is a ground-breaking turnkey bundle which assimilates AT&T global MPLS VPN network, Cisco TelePresence application, and tactical application management for quick turn-up and simplicity of use, promising the client experience to be awesome.

AT&T Managed TelePresence will provide:

  • a bundled, completely-managed service which provides a turn-key solution for companies.
  • a “meet-me” business-to-business connectivity feature which permits numerous companies in different sites to connect with one another
  • Web-based application for setting up, directory assistance and reporting analytics
  • Managed network services empowering converged network solution supported by Service Level Agreements to enhance Cisco TelePresence application

 

As enterprises increasingly look to Cisco TelePresence in their office work places, the confidence that it can be completely managed should only assist them to adopt and scale it all over their enterprise. An analyst said” There’s no apology for companies not to have Cisco TelePresence as it fits with worldwide growth stratagems, enhances work practices, carbon reduction programs, etc — and the business case is obvious.”

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Fresh Research Highlights Varied Advantages of Cisco Telepresence

While expense savings is a normal driving element for Cisco telepresence investments, it’s the many other advantages that manifest as a consequence of habit that substantiate the holding of the most value. In an effort to demonstrate the diversity of advantages that video collaboration technologies like Cisco telepresence convey, such as enhancing work-life balance, enhancing efficiency and minimizing confusion, Cisco appointed a worldwide study to discover end user awareness of Cisco telepresence and video conferencing in the official work place. The research, announced recently, polled a universally representative section of office workers from 12 key markets and found vivid dissimilarities between how users and nonusers of the technology take in the different advantages.

While there were a lot of astonishing and thought-provoking findings from the study, key conclusions include:

  • There are substantial gaps amongst user and nonuser perceptions of the advantages of Cisco telepresence and video conferencing. For example, 90% of regular user’s state that the technologies saved them at least two hours of invaluable work time every week; yet only a third of nonusers understood they could save any time using the technology.
  • Both users and nonusers understand the importance of video collaboration technologies, but workers who regularly use Cisco telepresence and video conferencing tremendously appreciate a broader swath of advantages that are more obvious from practice – demonstrating that seeing is believing. Find out how respondents ranked the top benefits here.

This study delivers invaluable understanding into how video collaboration is revolutionizing the ways in which people work and communicate. While not everybody has access to Cisco telepresence and video conferencing yet, it is obvious that there is a strong demand. This demand joined with the considerably enriched and differentiated technology, and deteriorating costs make a robust case for the anticipated market growth.  It is just a matter of time before workers who don’t have access to the technology, or only have the intermittent chance to use it, can experience the many advantages of the visually empowered workplace every day.

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Cisco Telepresence Promotes Real Scientific Education Via Virtual Exposure

Via Cisco TelePresence, the Hall of Sciences is able to take distant visitors all over its museum floors. People residing in locations like Sacramento, California; Seattle, Washington; St. Joseph, Michigan; Ontario, Canada; and Mexico City, Mexico have been able to visit the the Hall of Sciences to dissect cows’ eyes, educate themselves regarding the phases of matter, and conduct studies on the science of sports—and they haven’t even had to set foot on an aero plane.

Cisco Telepresence was welcomed to the Hall of Sciences in the year 2006. Since that time, educators have utilized the virtual visits program to complement their classroom lectures and provide their pupils a virtually hands-on scientific experience in the farthest sense possible. Cisco Telepresence transports the museum’s educators and connoisseurs right into the classroom, where pupils can fire off their questions and view up-close the procedure of experiments. It’s debatably a more enhanced view than the pupils might have obtained at the real museum, while assembled around a tiny table and jostling for a spot in the front!

The connection Cisco telepresence enables amongst schools and museums and other varied experiences allows a priceless improvement to pupils’ education. Even the great Google thinks so. The Internet colossus recently declared $12 million in scholarships to science museums, the Hall of Science being among the final list of beneficiaries. The museums will utilize the funds to improve their exhibitions and syllabi, and to enhance outreach with the external community situated outside their walls. The Hall of Science has established a standard with its utilization of Cisco telepresence, and Cisco is hopeful that the other beneficiaries will also consider directing some grant funds towards executing the technology.

Cisco can, and would love to, bring science connoisseurs into all the classrooms all over the world! How much more exhilarating would that make your science classes? After all, we have to boost and cultivate the telepresence avant-gardists of the future using the powerful tool of education.

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Cisco Telepresence is Exactly What the Doctors Ordered

In a recent informal survey carried out by Brentwood, Tennessee’s Aegis Health Group, local physicians complained regarding grievances ranging from “bad parking” to a shortage of specialists, the neccessity of online education, and the requirement for a forum in which to share their personal ideas with their colleagues.

While we don’t really have any words of wisdom regarding the parking issue, we do know that Cisco telepresence can help remediate a lot of the other complaints. Firstly, Cisco telepresence can immediately bring a specialist doctor to a patient, even if the physician is situated across the nation or somewhere else in the world. High Definition (HD) screens can empower the physician with a crystal clear view of the affected patient and supply the patient with real-time live access to the remotely assisting doctor. Similarly, Cisco telepresence applications allow all kinds of distance learning—not just for physicians, though surely inclusive of them. And what can be a better way to initiate a discussion forum, particularly between colleagues working at other hospitals, than via the face-to-face connection advantages which Cisco telepresence provides?

It doesn’t just end here. Surveyed physicians expressed their frustration at the episodic unreachability of radiologists and the unsatisfied requirement for same-day imaging. Via the use of Cisco telepresence, a physician who can’t leave his/her office or who works from a remote location can view an x-ray image with unparalleled lucidity. This advantage can minimize the wait time and enhance the efficiency of patient healthcare.

And it doesn’t stop with the doctors, either. Eventually, deploying Cisco telepresence equipment can assist hospitals in cutting costs by streamlining their managerial practices. For example, a huge chain of hospitals can minimize organizational dismissals by depending on Cisco telepresence for enhanced communication across departments and among the facility’s leaders.

Let’s face it: the list of advantages to be gained via Cisco telepresence in hospitals doesn’t have an ending in sight. Cisco Telepresence is an essential tool for enhancement of patient healthcare, improving physician satisfaction levels, and encouraging fiscal best practices.

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Cisco Telepresence in the Classroom

In case your idea of a classroom belongs to the traditional trains of thought, you have to take a long and hard look at Charles County Public Schools in Southern Maryland. In the year 2010, the district introduced Cisco telepresence, deploying three entirely equipped rooms to better serve the community’s pupils and teachers. All of a sudden, the classrooms have lost their four walls and associated physical boundaries, and previous geographical and scholastic teaching limitations have ceased to confine the scope and breadth of learning.

With the use of Cisco telepresence , the district can now bring in educators for vital subjects in which current teachers may not have specific proficiency. For example, Kaplan instructors based in New York City will provide advanced placement (AP) statistics classes via two high school Cisco telepresence classrooms. Furthermore, a partnership with Duke University will be able to bring AP maths and physics to the Maryland schools, and Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment will be able to take students on virtual field trips to learn marine biology.

The district also expects to utilize a Cisco telepresence room in a managerial building for instructor education. As the College of Education at Towson University is situated nearly two hours away, teachers require more choices for localized, first-rate expert development. The Cisco telepresence deployment has the potential to bring Towson professors virtually to Charles County—and no one needs to drive to get there and make this happen.

Not only does Cisco telepresence enlarge Charles County schools’ course offerings, but it can also expand students’ learning. In numerous Minnesota schools, Cisco telepresence brings historical figures to life. In an academic program with the Minnesota History Center, primary and middle school pupils engage via the use of interactive video with imitated travelers and inventers. The historical figures take the pupils inside their worlds, sharing their stories and instructing the pupils via pretend activities including portaging canoes and gathering rice.

I don’t know what you think, but for me, speaking with a virtual pioneer sounds more inspiring than just simply reading about him and his exploits in a textbook. It’s just one of the revolutions which Cisco telepresence brings to the education sector – and makes it so exciting!

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Cisco is Taking TelePresence Everywhere

ūmi telepresence has also rapidly become the standard for high quality video calling inside the home. Since Cisco unveiled the ūmi product line in October, thousands of individuals have selected the technology to interconnect in entirely new ways with their friends and family members. They are getting together to share their holidays, organizing family get-togethers and celebrating their birthdays, even if they are situated thousands of miles away from each other.

We have always understood that high-quality video experiences will be inescapable during the course of our professional and personal lives. Cisco took a big step forward in delivering on this vision by broadcasting additions to the Cisco umi telepresence product range and compatibility between Cisco Business TelePresence and umi telepresence inside the home.

The new product additions to the Cisco umi range include the new umi 720, which supplies the best-in-class video calling experience which people have come to anticipate from Cisco but at a reduced price point and necessitating reduced bandwidth.

Cisco also launched ūmi Connect for PCs and Macs to extend the umi experience to the desktop computer. ūmi Connect is now obtainable as a free download.  Product trials are developing well and both products will be obtainable early in summer.  Cisco has also broadcast a price discount for the umi 1080, now available for just $499.

Connecting Cisco TelePresence in the office workplace to ūmi inside the home has momentous consequences and opens up a vast prospect for businesses, government, and educational institutions to supply services via high-definition (HD) immersive video experiences.

The prospects are limitless. Physicians can now consult with their patients at home; a teacher in California can now interact with a classroom located in Asia, and this is just the beginning. The opportunity is correspondingly noteworthy for service providers, who will now possess a new class of services which they can offer, and for customers who will obtain access to services never-before-possible via the realistic video experience of Cisco telepresence, from the luxury of their own homes.

The network is now prepared to supply a variety of new experiences into the home. We like this as a transformative opportunity to revolutionize the way in which people live, work, play and learn. The work we are now able to accomplish with a city in Asia serves as a primary example of what’s promising. The government there is already in the testing phase and attempting to bring business and citizen services to customers via their HDTV by connecting Cisco TelePresence in office locations with ūmi systems in customers’ homes.

Video has been a dominant, disrupting technology for both businesses and customers, and we are extremely excited about the prospective of Cisco’s expanded ūmi product line to empower further embracing of Cisco telepresence technology in the home.

By connecting together the home and business, Cisco telepresence experiences over video ready networks, we believe Cisco Telepresence can offer more value-added services which will significantly benefit both businesses and customers.

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Cisco Telepresence is a Huge Value Add for Summer School Instruction

Unluckily, according to a leading newspaper daily, schools gradually have to reduce summer school financing to make up for financial deficits. In a few districts the school principals and educators have offered to work minus salary, while some other educational institutes have closed down summer programs completely.

This leading newspaper daily had lately held a discussion among school leaders to deliberate on cost effective methods of giving students the education they need during the summer holidays so that they don’t lose ground between the school years. A manager at Diamond Lake School District near Chicago, suggested organizing summer school around fieldtrips as a substitute for classroom education. He debated that in terms of cost discounts, fieldtrips would need lesser educators on the workforce because, after educators concluded the fieldtrip organization, paraprofessionals (who receive lower incomes) could handle the day-to-day administration. He also proposed that to decrease transportation costs, educational institutes can bring in special programs.

We like this thinking (why not focus summer school around experimental education—way more exhilarating than sitting in a classroom all through the summer!), and we think Cisco telepresence could add a completely new element to his proposed plan. Cisco Telepresence technology, the deployment of which could be a one-time expenditure for school districts, can take pupils to museums located anywhere around the world, back in time to experience diverse ways of life, and even to a different planet. No transport is needed. The Cisco telepresence technology could be multi-purposed throughout the school year to further the progress of education in all sorts of subjects.

Outside cost-effective simulated fieldtrips, Cisco telepresence can interconnect pupils to the content and skills education they require, even if their normal school is unable to directly deliver the class. Cisco Telepresence already interconnects pupils to courses taught at other schools, empowering educators to reach any quantity of pupils outside of the classroom’s physical walls.

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Cisco Telepresence Augments the Breadth and Depth of Learning in Classrooms

If your idea of a classroom is the traditional, you need to check out Charles County Public Schools in Southern Maryland. In 2010, the district introduced telepresence, installing three completely equipped rooms to service the community’s students and teachers. All of a sudden, the classrooms lost their walls, and prior geographic and instructional limitations ceased to restrict learning.

With telepresence , the district can bring in teachers for important subjects in which current instructors may not have specialized expertise. For example, Kaplan instructors based in New York City will deliver advanced placement (AP) statistics instruction through two high school telepresence classrooms. Additionally, a partnership with Duke University will bring AP math and physics to the Maryland schools, and Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment will take students on virtual field trips to study marine biology.

The district also hopes to use a telepresence room in an administrative building for teacher education. With the College of Education at Towson University nearly two hours away, teachers need options for local, high-quality professional development. The telepresence setup has the potential to bring Towson professors to Charles County—and no one has to drive.

Not only will telepresence increase Charles County schools’ course offerings, but it can also deepen students’ learning. In several Minnesota schools, telepresence brings historical figures to life. In a program with the Minnesota History Center, elementary and middle school students engage through interactive video with impersonated explorers and pioneers. The figures take the students into their worlds, sharing their stories and guiding the students through simulated activities like portaging canoes and harvesting rice.

I don’t know about you, but to me, talking to a virtual pioneer sounds more stimulating than reading about one in a textbook. It’s just one of the innovations telepresence brings to education, and I am proud to be part of an ongoing effort that enhances all levels of learning – and makes it so exciting!

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Cisco TelePresence Covers Even Rugged and Remote Areas

Cisco carries on its tradition to empower and extend Cisco telepresense through enterprises allo around the world for any given environment. Cisco’s newest technologies – the new VX Tactical endpoint, ISDN Link and ISDN Gateway – enable Cisco telepresence to possess increased installation flexibility in new sites irrespective of environment or connection choices.

The latest Cisco TelePresence VX Tactical is a rugged mobile endpoint designed for “in-person” meetings with other members of their staff regardless of where they are located in the world. Transferable and ruggedized, the VX Tactical allows the advantages of mobility via a hard case-like form factor which is perfect for deployment in the military, emergency services, oil and gas, and construction environments where field work is regularly a necessity. The VX Tactical has a high-impact plastic shell with an aluminum interior frame to supply you with physical strength, and is developed to be water, sand, chemicals and corrosives resilient. It can be deployed nearly anywhere – in an Army Humvee, a tank, a fire truck, or even on an oil rig – so that, anywhere you can have access to an Internet connection regardless of whether it is IP, Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G or satellite, you will always have Cisco TelePresence with you.

Talking of flexible connections, there are many regions of the world where ISDN is the only available option, or where connection to outside networks like V.35 is needed. For example, tiny branch locations of banks situated in smaller cities across the world may only have access to ISDN connectivity, which previously used to limit the customers’ options in the Cisco telepresence endpoints they could choose.  This has kept many of Cisco’s clients on the MXP platform – but with the latest Cisco TelePresence ISDN Link, a  small appliance that supplies ISDN and outside network connectivity, Cisco’s clients can upgrade to Cisco’s newest products: Cisco TelePresence EX, MX, SX and C Series endpoints. The ISDN Link is a wonderful companion solution to the Cisco VX Tactical, which is often installed in distant sites where ISDN is the only connection choice available.

While the ISDN Link is utilized for ISDN connectivity with one or two endpoints,  the new ISDN Gateway will act as a network reserve for ISDN connectivity for numerous endpoints. ISDN Gateway puts the last touches on the connectivity for clients with a widely dispersed corporate network. The ISDN Gateway products provide support for all Cisco TelePresence endpoints to empower a collaborative and protected ISDN network for an HD telepresence solution regardless of where the client is located around the globe.

So regardless of who you wish to speak to, where they are situated, whether they use IP or ISDN, you will be always have the ability to connect within seconds and experience HD video.  The solutions continue to provision support for new use cases as Cisco continues to construct the Cisco telepresence technology which brings people together from any location, at all times.

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