Page 74 - Managing the Mobile Workforce

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far-flung areas of the world, Halo has no “latency,” or delay. Imagine
talking back and forth with people all over the world just as if you
were having a normal conversation over a cup of coffee. More impor-
tantly, Bill told us that he had recently negotiated multimillion-dollar
deals with various clients around the world using Halo Collaboration
Meeting Rooms. In the past, he would have had to travel to a face-
to-face meeting for something that important. What’s going on here?
HP is not the only company developing and selling telepresence
products. Cisco, for example, has a product it calls “Cisco Telepres-
ence,” Polycom has something it calls “Immersive Telepresence,” and
Tandberg’s Telepresence T3 has “astonishment as standard.” “The fi-
delity,” Tandberg says, “with which Telepresence T3 captures every
sound, every gesture, and every facial expression supports the kind
of natural interaction that enables you to get on with the business at
hand.” And that’s just the start; other companies are also in the game
2
and the race is on. The business goals are clear. Each of these com-
panies is battling to create the best new telepresence products and to
develop market share in this field. By the time this book gets into your
hands, we are likely to see products we can’t imagine now from new