ABA Banking Journal - April 2008 - (Page 52)
Tech topics workforces, may mean that times are changing for the video conference. Erica Schroeder, Cisco’s director of marketing for TelePresence, says that her firm hit the 100-customer milestone a few months ago and continues to see interest in these units. “Several of our customers are banks,” she explains, adding that manufacturing, high tech, and retail orders are also filtering in. While meeting replacement is always a common usage, “for everything from product/service development to gathering staff from several regions for routine updates,” at least one bank has created a “Virtual Assistant,” using the technology to bring mortgage or investment experts from centralized locations for a client virtual meeting in the branch. As with Wachovia, another bank, Schroeder relates, has made use of video conferencing to speed post merger staff integration. “Basically, they could use the conferencing equipment to have more frequent updates on postmerger operational business,” she explains. Claire Schooley’s research notes that the combination of high-end conferencing with existing collaboration technologies are helping to give the units traction in financial services. Schooley wrote that Cisco took the TelePresence 3000, which uses three 65-inch plasma display windows, and integrated it with Microsoft Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes to add collaborative tools. Using Cisco TelePresence Manager, a customer can schedule a virtual connection through groupware tools such as Outlook or Notes and then push the meeting information into the video conferencing room, starting the video conference by touching one phone key. The collaboration solution, she wrote, is a component within Cisco’s Service Oriented Network Architecture (SONA) and is delivered over a converged network or a Cisco-certified TelePresence Network connection using 1080 progressive video, a high quality display resolution that is one of the high definition standard resolu- Meeting in the round: Cisco’s TelePresence 3000 unit makes face-to-face an option even when big distances are involved. tions. Most telepresence units by other manufacturers, Schooley adds, have some sort of capability around document display. HP’s Halo Collaboration Studio uses proprietary technology and runs only on HP’s Halo Video Exchange Network, which HP operates as a dedicated high-definition connection that provides excellent image quality and no perceived latency in a specially designed videoconferencing room, according to the Forrester report. Polycom’s RealPresence Solution, which supports interoperability with other standards-based videoconferencing systems, says Schooley, is designed with a modular room (think trade show style expanded kiosks or meeting rooms) and lacks the immersive quality of true telepresence but offers users flexibility, she says. Teliris VirtualLive, which has zeroed in on the high-end videoconferencing experience, offers a multipoint, multiscreen telepresence experience with 1080 progressive displays, Schooley wrote. The proprietary camera and multipoint vectoring technologies optimize the picture quality and maintain eye contact and site lines in multiple meeting rooms. BJ Vendors mentioned Cisco TelePresence product line (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps7060/index.html) Hewlett-Packard Halo product line (http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/570007-0-0-0-121.html) Polycom RealPresence product line (http://www.polycom.com/usa/en/pro ducts/telepresence/telepresence_experience/tpx.html) Teliris VisualLive product line (http://www.teliris.com/solution_technology.html) 52 APRIL 2008/ABA BANKING JOURNAL Subscribe at www.ababj.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.