12 August 2010. Most people today do not consider using a Telepresence meeting as an an alternative to travel. Now they will be able to do so using the new Sabre/Cisco Telepresence distribution and reservation platform.

Sabre Travel Network, the leading provider of high performance solutions for the travel industry, plans to collaborate with Cisco on the development of the industry’s first Telepresence distribution and reservation platform. This will enabling agencies and corporations to book services from any Telepresence provider and any point of sale. 

Sabre Travel Network® is the world’s leading Global Distribution System (GDS) for the travel industry. The company has thousands of travel-loving employees in 59 countries who develop products and services for more than 55,000 travel agency locations. Sabre GDS provides a ready-built efficient marketplace that connects travel suppliers, including hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotels, with these 55,000 travel agency locations and corporate customers.

Sabre also announced enhancements to its GetThere portal for business customers (See our next News Byte). These customers already have access to a more limited Telepresence reservation platform in collaboration with Tata Communications (See our News Byte of 23 June 2010)

Using the Sabre Telepresence distribution platform, users will be able to view room availability in real time, book meetings, and review applicable rates and restrictions. A Sabre spokesperson said the two companies will build a distribution platform for Telepresence that will allow companies to shop for and book Telepresence rooms for virtual meeting sessions.

Sabre intend for this to be an industry solution that will allow any Telepresence provider to be part of this broader network. Travel managers or travel agents will be able to book Telepresence rooms through this system. Corporations with Telepresence rooms will be able to use the system to book intra-company virtual meetings. Staff of corporations could also book their internal rooms and public Telepresence rooms or rooms within other corporations, given the appropriate permission, the spokes person added.

Public telepresence providers and private corporations will have the ability to provide open or restricted access to their rooms through the Sabre platform.  For example, public telepresence suite providers could provide open access to view and reserve their rooms, while corporations with private rooms could restrict viewership to their employees and select business partners.
 
The new platform will leverage Sabre’s deep history and expertise in building highly scalable reservation and distribution systems with Cisco’s established presence in the collaboration space, and its innovation with Telepresence technology.  Sabre is  bringing an industry solution to market, that will offer corporations and agencies a true “travel and collaboration management” solution.

Additionally, Companies can now build greater awareness of Telepresence technology by utilizing the existing workflows in place for booking and managing travel through tools like Sabre’s GetThere, the web portal used by many companies. An increase in the utilization of existing Telepresence rooms should result.

Greg Webb, president of Sabre Travel Network, said: “For years, corporations and agencies have been using Sabre and GetThere technology to effectively manage their business travel and today it remains one of the primary tools used to collaborate. Over the past few years, we’ve also seen the demand for Telepresence grow and become an important collaboration technology that, like travel, drives business and economic growth for our customers.  We believe our long history of technology and distribution leadership uniquely positions us to deliver the industry’s first platform for virtual meetings.” 

Mark Weidick, vice president and general manager, Cisco TelePresence Exchange business unit said:  “Corporations are using Telepresence technology to collaborate more effectively and to solve real business problems, which is driving the significant growth of this technology. Cisco believes that by distributing Telepresence unit availability using a common platform with appropriate viewing restrictions and access controls, corporations will be able to improve productivity and drive new levels of collaboration across their organizations and with their partners, customers and suppliers.”

6 August 2010. GetThere, the world’s leading travel and collaboration management solution company with $9 billion in annual bookings, began to offer Public Telepresence Rooms for Virtual Meetings in association with Tata Communications in June 2010. Pilot tests were to be followed by a rollout later in 2010.

The agreement enhanced GetThere’s Collaboration offering by providing its customers with access to Tata Communications’ network of public Telepresence rooms located around the world.

Sabre Travel Network has now made some key enhancements for its GetThere(R)  global customers (http://www.getthere.com). The technology consolidates the best in travel, meetings, expense and social networking solutions in a single online portal user experience.

The new GetThere web portal offers to eliminates the obstacles employees currently face navigating between collaboration, travel and expense tools within their companies by centralizing access to them from one place. When combined with a single sign-on, customers can seamlessly tab through to each environment securely and efficiently, thus increasing speed and productivity.

Another benefit of the new portal integration package is that customers can not only book business travel through GetThere’s tested and award-winning interface, but also access employee-discounted leisure travel via Travelocity.

For corporations eager to make travel and expense applications easier to access from each other, the new tabbed design makes accessing any business expense management system as easy as a click of a mouse. Additionally, corporations can connect their employees to each other securely and in a highly cost-effective manner by providing a proven corporate community/social network and file communication solution.

A Sabre Travel Network(R) business, GetThere is the recognized leader among large and medium-sized corporations. It provides online solutions for the majority of America’s 100 largest corporate travel programs.

GetThere provided the first solution that enables both corporations and agencies to shop and book preferred collaboration assets within an online booking workflow, allowing them to easily plan travel, meeting and social networking options.

Paul Wiley, director of product marketing for GetThere, said: “With the rollout of the new integrated offering we have made the GetThere solution even more cost-saving oriented for businesses looking for an efficient and employee-friendly way to manage business collaboration.” 

The reader can learn more about GetThere’s collaboration offerings at:
 http://www.getthere.com/collaborate/.

Sabre Travel Network’s multi-channel merchandising and procurement solutions enable corporate and leisure agencies, corporate travel programs, airlines, hotels and other travel suppliers around the world to make money, save money and provide better customer service.

Sabre Holdings connects people with the world’s greatest travel possibilities by retailing travel products and providing distribution and technology solutions for the travel industry. More information about Sabre Holdings is available at: 
http://www.sabre-holdings.com.

16 August 2010. SAP vice president for sustainability Scott Bolick, when visiting Australia recently for the second meeting of SAP ANZ’s Sustainability Executive Advisory Council, said reducing company air travel needs is a crucial part of SAP’s plan to keep emissions below 460 kilotonnes in 2010.  

SAP’s objective of staying below 460 kilotonnes of emissions in 2010 is part of an aggressive commitment to reduce total carbon emissions to 275 kilotonnes per year by 2020 from 540 kilotonnes per year pre-2007. Scott Bolick acknowledges that SAP’s target of 275 kilotonnes - the level in the year 2000 - is ambitious, but says that it will ultimately deliver bottom line benefits.

Our target is ambitious but we also believe that it’s going to give us incredible insight in terms of our operations and in terms of how we can help our customers,” said Bolick. “It’s also going to give us tremendous bottom line improvements. We are marching down that path and will present our five year plan to our Executive Sustainability Council at the end of November.”

Scott Bolick told his SAP colleagues that: “This year (2010) we made investments in Telepresence systems to reduce travel. We’re really trying to encourage people to leverage remote technology rather than getting on a plane. We’ll make other investments as well as we go forward, but the Telepresence system really is helping us with that 25 to 30 per cent of our carbon that’s related to flights.”  

SAP AG standardised on the Cisco TelePresence system for high-end virtual meetings to foster internal collaboration globally as early as April 2007. Initially, Cisco TelePresence rooms were set up in SAP offices in Walldorf, Germany,  Palo Alto, California, and Newtown Square, Pennsylvaniain June 2007.

"By implementing the Cisco TelePresence system, we will take collaboration to the next level by overcoming geographical barriers and enabling employees, customers and partners to work together more effectively," said Uwe Herold, CIO, SAP AG at that time. "We anticipate that TelePresence will substantially enhance SAP's operational efficiency, particularly in the areas of new product development, and customer engagement."

The SAP AG Sustainability report for Q2 2010 said:

“As we look to decrease emissions, limiting employee air travel is currently a top priority for SAP as this heavily contributes to our footprint. Air travel figures are currently higher compared with last year — which can be explained by the need to support renewed business demands following economic challenges in 2009.”

“While travel to support our customers is a priority for the organization, we are working to provide our employees greater insight into the situation and encourage travel alternatives such as virtual meetings.”

“As part of this effort we plan to invest further in Telepresence systems throughout our offices to support communications with customers, partners, employees and stakeholders.”

17 August 2010. C100 is a cross-border association of tech entrepreneurs, mainly from Silicon Valley (and mostly Canadian-born), dedicated to reducing the learning curve for Canadian entrepreneurs. Cisco systems, a C100 sponsor, supplied meeting rooms in Toronto and San Jose, along with its Cisco Telepresence 3000 system, for their first meeting with three Canadian startup companies.

An article in the Financial Post by Rick Spence who watched the virtual meeting described it like this:
"On one side of the room, sat six silicon Valley veterans -- successful business builders, marketers and technologists ready to advise aspiring Canadian entrepreneurs. on the other side of the table: three startup founders anxious for any tips, war stories or referrals that might help them sell to the Valley`s high-tech heroes, or tap its formidable venture-capital markets."

"The gap between the two sides of the table was not just experience vs. youth, or mentors vs. proteges. the two sides were 3,600 kilometres apart, connected by Cisco "Telepresence" technology, a life-like (and maybe life-changing) video-conferencing solution that made all the participants feel as if they were in one room. The wood-grain conference table in Toronto blended seamlessly into its on-screen counterpart in San Jose, and the multi-speaker audio made voices appear to originate from the mentors` mouths, not from a fuzzy loudspeaker in the middle of the table."

Rick Spence was allowed to observe C100`s first Toronto-San Jose telementoring event, but he had to promise not to disclose any revealing details of the companies that took part. He found the quality of the advice was high, and the mentors were enthusiastic to introduce the startups to Silicon Valley power brokers.

The C100 cross-border association plans to hold these TelePresence Meetings quarterly in addition to regular missions bringing Canadian entrepreneurs to silicon Valley in person. So the C100 group could make a real difference helping Canadians succeed in one of the most competitive markets.

Rick Spence noted these highlights from the sessions that should help any entrepreneur perfect their pitch:

1. Sum up your pitch early. Fifteen minutes into one presentation, The mentors admitted they didn`t understand one company`s value proposition after 15 minutes a third of the time for his presentation

2. Keep it simple.Only one product or market per PowerPoint slide.

3. Focus the company`s efforts. Seleect the three products you think have the most potential, and put your energy into marketing those.

4. Tell us what you do for the customer. One mentors said: "We don`t care how you do it; describe what problems you solve for the customer."

By contrast, they chided another presenter`s website for being about the technology and not the customer. said one mentor: "take it down and put up a website that sells"

5. It`s all about sales. The mentors encouraged all three startups to hire the best sales talent they can find. One mentor said: "I wouldn`t give you a dime if i didn`t know who your sales guy is. Get that right, and you`ll have lots of offers to invest."

Although the Mentors` advice was sometimes harsh, they invited the presenters down to Silicon Valley to meet some of their contacts and promised to do whatever they could to help them.

The C100 cross-border association plans to hold these TelePresence Meetings quarterly in addition to regular missions bringing Canadian entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley in person. So the C100 group could make a real difference by helping Canadians succeed in one of the most competitive markets.

Source: "Mentoring the digital way can be very effective; Technology closes the distance gap" by Rick Spence, Financial Post, Toronto 17 August 2010.

16 August 2010. Mercy Health and Aged Care Central Queensland Limited is a Catholic provider of health and aged care services with hospitals and aged care facilities in Queensland, Australia.

 The organization has installed LifeSize HD video conferencing solutions in six of its facilities and is already reaping the benefits of enhanced internal communication, collaboration, improved work/life balance and safety for its employees.

 Working with Instantly There, a LifeSize partner, Mercy installed a LifeSize Room 220™ in its corporate head office facility in Rockhampton and LifeSize Express™ and LifeSize Team 220 systems in smaller meeting rooms and facilities in various locations in Central Queensland.

Marcia Healy, information systems officer at Mercy Health said the LifeSize system was easily integrated into their everyday business activities and has transformed internal communication within the organisation. “Everyone has been very impressed by the quality of the video and audio of the system including how easy it is to use, so it has been quickly embraced by our staff, she said.”

Marcia added: “Our employees are spread across many different locations so the video communications system has added a new speed and dimension to our internal communication. With this new system, we can meet more spontaneously. There is now no need to travel as frequently. We are also assured that there is no compromise on quality when meeting via video conferencing as the experience is as if you were meeting face to face.”

“In particular, one of our surgeons has commented that since using LifeSize to participate in education sessions and peer reviews, he feels as though he is now actually participating with the other people as opposed to feeling like a distant observer.”

“An important benefit of installing the system is improved employee safety. Previously some staff had to drive up to eight hours to attend a regular two hour meeting. Reducing this travel has increased their productivity, enhanced work/life balance and has improved their safety by reducing the risk of car accidents and fatigue on the road.”

Warwick Prince, technical director of Instantly There, a partner of LifeSize, said that after Mercy had viewed the live demonstration, the LifeSize equipment essentially sold itself.  When we hosted the demonstration, Mercy was immediately impressed by the quality of the system and how well it integrated with its existing infrastructure.”

Tim Fulton, country manager for Australia, LifeSize Communications said the company is at the forefront of a HD video conferencing boom. “Over the past six months we’ve seen growing demand across all industries, including health and education where organisations are looking to cut down travel time and costs but can’t afford to sacrifice on quality – an engaging and true-to-life experience is paramount.”

“When customers like Mercy Health experience LifeSize solutions, they instantly see that we can offer a more flexible, immersive video solution. It’s because of this growing reputation that we have companies looking to LifeSize for innovative and creative HD video solutions to solve real business problems.”

9 August 2010. Polycom, Inc. has signed a multi-year, strategic global agreement with Microsoft Corp. to deliver integrated end-to-end unified communications (UC) and to improve customers’ business productivity. This agreement makes Polycom a member of Microsoft’s key strategic global alliance for the company’s UC business.

 Brent Kelly, senior analyst and partner at Wainhouse Research, said: “Our research shows that nearly 70 percent of the companies considering a unified communications solution are thinking of deploying Microsoft Office Communications Server. These enterprises need seamless integration and interoperability between Office Communicator on the desktop and personal, group, and telepresence video solutions like those offered by Polycom for executive offices, meeting suites, and conference rooms. By working together, Microsoft and Polycom are making it easier for organizations to have a true end-to-end unified communications environment, which includes high definition video.”                                                                        

 As part of this long-term strategic agreement, each company is investing in product development, sales, and marketing. Through resources, investments, and strong field engagement, Polycom and Microsoft will deliver rich, compelling UC solutions, offering customers the flexibility to deploy the features that help them lower their costs, improve productivity and meet their unique business needs.

Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of Unified Communication at Microsoft, said: “Microsoft and Polycom are committed to a roadmap that will deliver interoperable UC solutions with choice and innovation in video conferencing and customer devices that will help transform enterprise communications. By integrating video, voice, instant messaging and conferencing solutions, Microsoft and Polycom give customers the ability to be present, anytime, anywhere.”

Andrew Miller, Polycom president and CEO, said: “Polycom and Microsoft deliver a winning combination to our customers around the globe by delivering seamless, easy-to-use, high-definition communications at the click of a mouse. Polycom is 100 percent committed to delivering best-in-breed, standards-based, fully interoperable UC solutions to market, and Microsoft is integral in helping us achieve this goal and meet the needs of our customers.”

The roadmap entails Polycom developing a broad base of solutions for Microsoft Communications Server “14” and beyond, including:
- New and next-generation Polycom CX series endpoints optimized for Microsoft UC, featuring Polycom’s market-leading HD video and voice  technologies
- New, innovative room-based video systems designed specifically for enabling direct integration with Microsoft Communications Server “14”
- Additional interoperable solutions between Polycom’s existing and future video conferencing solutions

The agreement provides for global Polycom/Microsoft UC Go-to-Market Initiatives in:
- Sales resources and training
- Integrated marketing campaigns
- Collaboration to develop and support channel partners
- Polycom participation in multiple Microsoft Technology Centers around the world, with active demos already available in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, London, and Paris
- Global governance and cadence around voice and video UC solutions
- Common messaging and industry presence to drive adoption of UC

Polycom and Microsoft share a vision for business productivity solutions built on standards-based platforms that work with the tools and applications people know and use today. The companies’ strategic agreement is a major step towards streamlining communications across messaging, video and voice with connected applications and devices.

To learn more about the agreement, watch the video of Gurdeep Singh Pall and Andy Miller discussing the news.  Click in the last paragraph of the Press Release at:

http://www.polycom.com/company/news_room/press_releases/2010/20100809.html

13 August 2010. The Unified Communications Interoperability Forum has bitten off a lot to chew and I’m frequently asked, “How you gonna eat all that?” We’re talking about assuring interoperability among different platforms, across different networks, through firewalls, and even, in the spirit of unified communications, bridging applications so text, audio, video, presence, presentation and a host of others can work together reliably, predictably and easily. And further, we’re planning to achieve all this without writing any standards at all.

 Wrting in Teleocm Resellr, Jeff Rodman said ast month I talked about how UCIF’s work consists of setting priorities, defining usage scenarios, writing test cases and applying those to a verification program so vendors and customers can be confident that the UCIF mark means interoperability. Here’s how that work happens.

UCIF is organized in a proven, conventional manner. In addition to a board of directors, which provides general direction and oversight, there are three working groups: technical, marketing, and test and certification.

The technical working group (TWG) sets priorities, defining usage scenarios and test cases. Most of the people are also active in other standards organizations like IETF, ITU and IMTC, so they have a lot of experience in the field and knowledge of what existing standards are best suited for each task. Further, if changes to those standards become needed, they can work with those organizations to make the changes happen.

The Test and Certification WG takes the work of TWG, turns it into a proven and workable test plan, and creates and maintains the verification program. The actual verification testing will be done by one or more outside labs, but following standard procedures. Testing against clearly-defined plans is the philosophy at the center of UCIF rather than testing system against system, as is common at interop events. This means that UC interop testing is completely scalable. As new vendors and products emerge and evolve, each only need be tested once, not retested against every other UC platform.

The marketing WG is not in the direct line of technical activities but is crucial because it drives communications and membership.  UCIF draws its strength from a broad and diverse base of members and the MWG role of communicating the importance and impact of the organization is central to bringing in the best talents to move their companies and the industry forward.

Although it’s only a few months old, there’s been a lot of activity and the first full members meeting is scheduled for August. If you haven’t joined yet, this would be a great time to do it. Visit ucif.org to get a full picture of how you can benefit, and for an application. One advantage of being new is that we’re pretty fast and responsive.

(1) Tata Communications' Chairman, Subodh Bhargava, said at the company's annual general meeting earlier this month that the company plans capital expenditure of $500 million in this fiscal year 2010-2011, including expnditure on additional submarine cable systems connecting emerging markets in Asia, the Middle-East and Africa.

"The company has commissioned additional submarine cable systems and is expanding capacity in the current year to meet the increasing bandwidth demand of broadband enterprise and wholesale customers over the next five to eight years," Bhargava said.

"We will continue to focus on re-defining telecom services for wholesale commodity and low-value operations to partnership-driven and value-enhancing business on expanding network in India. We will grow this year in the international market with services including Telepresence, media and entertainment solutions, Ethernet and cloud computing," Bhargava said.

India's telecom market is growing rapidly and is expected to be worth Rs 15,852 crore by 2010, contributing 5.6 per cent to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the company said in its annual report.                            

Media Contact: Heidi Castle Sabre Holdings 682-605-4290 heidi.castle@sabre.com

Photo caption: Rutger Zeldenrijk (Talk & Vision), David van den Berg (Polycom), Maarten van Heck and Martijn Blokland (both Talk & Vision) drink a toast to the Platinum Partnership

(1) Talk & Vision is the first operator in the Benelux to be appointed a Polycom Platinum Partner. Polycom sets stringent requirements for this form of extensive partnership. Talk & Vision has a a staff of 60 including engineers with extensive knowledge and certifications in the field of visual communications and network management. Furthermore, Talk & Vision is capable of independently performing Polycom demonstrations at its European sites in Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and the UK

Maarten van Heck, Manager Professional Services at Talk & Vision said it wa a great honour to become the first Polycom partner in the Benelux to be awarded Platinum status.

David van de Berg, Regional Director Polycom Benelux added:  “Within a short period of time, Talk & Vision has proven that it can serve the market at premium level. The cooperation in the area of lead generation and marketing that the Platinum Partnership provides in return is therefore entirely in keeping with the turnover achieved and high quality service offered to Polycom users.”

(2) NACR (North American Communications Resource, Inc.) has expanded its solutions portfolio and appointed a dedicated team to support the growing demand for unified communications (UC) with integrated video conferencing.

NACR has named Erin Count as Video Sales Specialist in charge of identifying and nurturing video conferencing opportunities, and serving as the central point of contact in support of customer sales. Her team also includes dedicated convergence and engineering resources for expertly integrating video conferencing into multi-vendor infrastructures.

As the largest Avaya channel partner worldwide and named Avaya BusinessPartner of the Year seven times, NACR (www.nacr.com) is a leading provider of end-to-end communications solutions — delivering comprehensive sales, consultative, and technical support, as well as managed services, maintenance, and repairs. NACR also has extensive Nortel certifications and is authorized to sell Nortel Enterprise Solutions (NES) in addition to the full line of Avaya products and services.

(1) Ron Jong, responsible for Canon`s sales through the 10 Canon Business Center Sales in the Netherlands, uses videoconferencing regularly for meetings with his managers.

Talk & Vision provided a video conferencing system for all Business Centers, as well as the Dutch headquarters. The fact that Talk & Vision could take care of the technological details via the MAVIS managed conferencing services concept was the decisive factor for Ron Jong.

“For the last three months I have contacted the Sales Managers four or five times a week using the video conferencing system”, says Ron Jong. “From a virtual meeting room I can reach anyone even multiple contacts whenever I want, in the exact same way as using the telephone. The Sales managers can also communicateamongthemselves via this secure virtual meetingroom."

These changes in communications save me a lot of time and it also saves a lot of fuel, states Ron Jong. "I initiate contact more often because the system can be used at any moment. We discuss the follow-up activities for marketing campaigns, decide on targets and discuss our response to competitors’ actions immediately. Less important or more sensitive, personal issues can also be addressed immediately, while these were not in the past due to the long list of agenda items. "

“I like the hands-on management it provides. You create a common ground that makes it easier to initiate contact.  Issues are clear faster, which leads to better results," concludes Jong.

(2) iCrossing UK is a digital marketing agency that specialises in search and social media.We design and build search and social media strategies for some of the world’s biggest brands, including The Coca-Cola Company, Toyota, Virgin, Bank of America, and TK MAXX.

iCrossing UK is part of iCrossing, one of the world’s largest, digital marketing agencies, which employs 550 staff in 11 offices around the globe, including 100 staff based at UK offices in London and Brighton.

iCrossing UK is using MeetingZone’s audio and web conferencing service as an essential business communications tool to ensure that it can quickly, easily, reliably and cost effectively communicate and collaborate with its clients regardless of their location. 

Reducing the need for business travel to and from internal meetings and external meetings with its clients, enables iCrossing to also cut CO2 emissions which fits perfectly within the company’s carbon-offsetting policy. 

“MeetingZone’s solution is easy to use and we were able to roll the new service out with minimum disruption to our staff.  We are also finding that on-going maintenance is trouble free,” concluded James Colborn, Head of Infrastructure for iCrossing. 

(1) In Australia at the Labor Party`s campaign launch, the Prime Minister Julia Gillard promised A$250 million on Medicare rebates for online consultations for rural, remote and outer metropolitan areas by July 2011 if Labor is re-elected. She spoke of medical consultations conducted by live videoconference.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard also announced A$50 million for a GP after-hours helpline which will provide medical advice through the National Broadband Network (NBN).

NBN Co chief, Mike Quigley, considers Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s commitment to e-Health services for online consultations to rural and remote Australia to be reasonable despite admitting an NBN rollout to all those regions will take some time. (See map of planned NBN with satellite network connections in green and fibre in red.)

(2) Traditional private pay-as-you-go telemedicine services in the United States often use physicians who simultaneously run their own practice and call back the patient, via video conferencing, as their schedule permits.

Rapid Remedy based in Pennsylvania employs its own physician network to be available whenever the patient calls during regular office hours (9am – 5pm). Having the doctors on-site allows each patient videoconference to commence within two minutes.

John Lawlor, Managing Partner for Rapid Remedy, says: “It’s all about access.” He expects companies will use this service as an employee benefit to provide workers and their families with efficient access to family docs for minor illnesses and health advice.

The physician — via videoconference with the patient  — conducts the evaluation, including the diagnosis, prescriptions, and treatment plan. After the conference with the patient, the physician is able to create medication prescriptions and electronically forward these prescriptions to a pharmacy of the patient’s choice.

“We are focused on building a national network of board certified family physicians who provide videoconference evaluations from our practice sites,” said Mr. Lawlor.

Rapid Remedy provides an answer to potential physician shortages.  “Our physician network has already admitted they will practice longer than expected — foregoing retirement for several years due to the ease of practicing with Rapid Remedy,” explained Mr. Lawlor.

Mr. Lawlor’s goal is to “establish videoconference primary care telemedicine as a common acceptable delivery model for 50% of the care that is currently provided in the primary care physician office.”
Source: Physicians` News Digest

(3) There are only 12 states in the United States that mandate reimbursement for telemedicine including California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia.  Each state determines its own guidelines for reimbursement.  Certain states will supplement Medicaid reimbursement, like Maine, while others, such as New Hampshire, will only qualify telemedicine in selected pilot programs.

(4) Research firm Pike & Fischer predicts that annual revenues for telemedicine services will exceed $3 billion by 2013.  Several Fortune 500 companies – including UnitedHealth, Intel, Verizon, Samsung, and more – are developing products to compete in the marketplace. 

(1) Europa Network, the largest fixed-line telecommunications company for the U.K. expatriate community in Spain, is using the Haivision Furnace™ IP video delivery system, equipped with 20 Barracuda™ H.264 encoders, to stream free-to-air (FTA) content from the U.K. over IPTV as a free, value-added service.

“Working with Techex and Haivision technology, we were able to engineer our own best-in-class solution capable of ensuring high service quality while overcoming the bandwidth restrictions imposed by the incumbent service providers that own the ‘last mile,’” said Alan Dobinson, CEO of Europa Network. Europa Network has become the only company in Spain to deliver high-quality IPTV on standard 1 Mbps to 3 Mbps connections.

The cost of implementing this solution was covered by the addition of 12,000 new users to Europa Network’s previous subscriber base of 15,000 billing customers.

Haivision’s Barracuda encoders and Furnace system allow the company to provide high-quality IPTV with less than a 3 Mbps connection. The encoders’ HiLo-Streaming™ supports efficient delivery of low and higher bit rate programming to subscriber PCs and to Amino set-top boxes (STBs) over an unpredictable low-bandwidth network.

The Barracuda systems encodes FTA (free to air broadcast) content from 12 channels at 1.5 Mbps or 0.75 Mbps. Customers watch the content on their PCs using Haivision’s patented “zero footprint” InStream™ player. This requiresg less than 800 kB of hard drive space, runs solely in the computer’s memory space and requires no installation, updates, or maintenance.

(1) Frost & Sullivan estimates that Asia-Pacific market for Video Conferencing Endpoints -- covering 14 Asia-Pac countries, including Japan -- will have revenues of US$367 million by the close of 2010, growing 9.5 percent on 2009 revenues of $335 million; shipments will grow by 14.1 percent to 108,434 units in 2010.

The Asia-Pacific market video conferencing endpoints is expected to see strong growth with revenues rising at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 13.6 percent from 2009 up to 2016 reaching nearly US$820 million. Unit shipments meanwhile are predicted to grow at a CAGR of 16.3 percent from 2009  up to 2016.

Almost all of the units sold in 2009 in the mid- to high-range market were High-Definition VC solutions. Frost and Sullivan expects HD VC adoption to continue rising through to 2016, even in countries like China and India -- where standard definition (SD) VC systems currently dominate -- as unit pricing declines further and customers realise the improved usability experience with HD.

The Asia-Pacific Video Conferencing Endpoints Market study is part of the F & S Conferencing & Collaboration Growth Partnership Service program, which also includes research in the following markets: telepresence, web conferencing software  and services, video conferencing infrastructure, audio and video conferencing services, and online enterprise collaboration and shared workspaces. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.

(2) Demand for Telepresence rooms in the Asia-Pacific is forecast to grow over 60 per cent this year and reach revenues of US$73.3 million, according to research firm Frost and Sullivan. Sectors that may drive this growth include education, finance and healthcare.

(1) When Google completes its $68.2m bid to acquire Global IP Solutions made in May 2010, there should be a major boost for videoconferencing on mobile devices, in particular those using Google's Android operating system.

In April 2010, GIPS announced that they were first-to-market with GIPS VideoEngine for Android, which provides mobile developers the vital building blocks for integrating video conferencing/video chat into applications running Google's Android mobile operating system. The GIPS software accounts for delay, packet loss, bandwidth limitations and echo to ensure that video conversations dynamically adjust with WiFi or 3G cellular network conditions in order to deliver quality video calling.

The GIPS VideoEngine is also available in iPhone and Windows Mobile OS variants.

In May 2010, the Chairman of GIPS told customers: “Google intends to continue servicing GIPS’s customers in accordance with existing contracts while offering them the opportunity to transition to new offerings developed by Google. Although we will not have more significant details until the process is complete and full integration efforts are underway, we will keep you informed throughout as events arise.

“Your company is a key customer of GIPS and we want to reassure you that GIPS will continue to honor and serve your needs and we will continue to fully support and enhance our products during and after the expected close of this proposed transaction.”

Q3 2010

1 September 2010 a Global Crossing virtual trade show streamed by ON24
Global Crossing hosts “Collaborate Now” to present its new Telepresence managed
service solution launched with Teliris (See our News Byte published 4 August 2010.)
To register for this ON24 event go to:
http://globalcrossing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1139  (go to last paragraph)

1 September 2010 at the Marriott Chicago Oak Brook, Oak Brook, IL, USA
AVI-SPL University Professional Series 2010 - Chicago
See how the RADVISION range of products can Work for You

8 September 2010 from 12:30 to 14:30 for Telepresence demo and lunch at Barbican, London 
Telepresence Forum with demo of the Cisco Tandberg T3 Telepresence suite
and short breakout sessions covering topics such as:
- An Introduction to Telepresence: What's All the Fuss About
- Justifying the Cost of Telepresence and Guaranteeing ROI
- Taking the Stress & High Cost Away From Telepresence with Managed Services
-  How Telepresence Fits Into the Bigger Communication Picture
Register with mvision at: www.telepresence-forum.co.uk/

22 September from 09:00 - 11:00 for Telepresence demo and breakfast at Barbican, London 
Telepresence Forum with demo of the Cisco Tandberg T3 Telepresence suite
and short breakout sessions covering topics the same as above:
Register with mvision at: www.telepresence-forum.co.uk/

28 to 30 September 2010 at the St. Julien Hotel, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Tele-Presence Forum Expo - Boulder
Tele-Presence Forum 2010 Expo highlights the rising importance of Tele-Presence to businesses, organizations and institutions of all sizes. Speakers have been identified that can address present concerns, ongoing issues and the future outlook of Tele-Presence. Includes "Telepresence Best Practices" with Tim Szigeti of  the Enterprise Systems Engineering team at Cisco Systems.
Register at: http://www.telepresenceforum.org/xpo/

29 September 2010 at Long Beach Convention Center,Long Beach, CA, USA
AVI-SPL University Professional Series 2010 - Los Angeles
See how the RADVISION range of products can Work for You

Q4 2010

3-6 October 2010 at the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort & Spa in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
The Visual Communications Industry Group (VCI-Group) Annual Conference
The educational sessions cover a variety of conferencing and collaboration related topics.
Information and online registration details are at:  www.vci-group.org.

10-14 October 2010 at Eilat, Israel
RADVISION Annual Global Partner Forum 2010

13-15 October 2010 at Novotel London West, London UK
Streaming Media Europe 2010 Conference & Expo 
The conference in Europe to cover technology solutions and business models for online video. • Workshops 13 October, • Content Delivery Summit 13 October, • Online Video Strategies 14 & 15 October
More at: http://www.streamingmediaglobal.com/europe/index.asp

Q1 2011

1-3 February, 2011 at Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands                                       Integrated Systems Europe 2011
Europe's No.1 Trade Show for AV and electronics systems integration
organised by CEDIA and InfoComm International.
In 2010 there were 640 exhibitors and over 28,000 attendees