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Cisco's Telepresent Future

Cisco may offer a version of telepresence in the home in the next three to four years, chief development officer Charles Giancarlo told press at the Cisco analyst conference today. Good luck. With current costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for one of these super-high quality videoconferencing products, it's only going to be Warren Buffett conversing with the Sultan of Brunei if Cisco can't bring costs down significantly.

Moore's Law isn't going to drive telepresence prices to the $100, $500 or $2500 price they need to be at to get accepted in the home all by itself. Cisco will undoubtedly need to cut features to get it to the level where people could be interested. Unfortunately for the consumer, all that could mean is a decrease in quality.

Today's telepresence offerings include a room full of stuff, including a next-generation ultra high-definition 1080p big screen (or three), high-quality directional microphones and speakers, multiple HD cameras, soft lighting to create a studio feel and a table and chairs for those in the meeting.

A stripped down version would conceivably require the buyer to have a 1080p television already and could only include the microphones and cameras and require the end-user to set it up all by themselves. To me, that's nothing more than glorified videoconferencing, which consumers have scoffed at for years.

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