Cisco Readying Tele Conferencing for Consumers

Monday, May 11, 2009

SAN JOSE -- Teleconferencing, which had been limited to a small number high end corporate users, is becoming widely adopted by users of Skype Video and of other web services as well as more sophisticated corporate products from Cisco and others.

Ken Wirt, VP of Consumer Marketing at Cisco tells Beet.TV that high end teleconferencing is set move into the consumer arena 'before too long." We taped this interview at the company headquarters last week.

New York Times, business travel writer Joel Sharkey finds that teleconferencing is making major strides. He reports on Skype, Cisco's TelePresence and Teliris, a new, venture backed company and how these technologies are being use instead of travel.

For now, a Cisco TelePresence system costs well into the the six figures.

Surely interactive video will grow as form of communication and as away of doing business. Many of use these tools now. But the prospect of having access to really high-quality live interactive video, at consumer prices, is very exciting.

Andy Plesser, Executive Producer