Cisco Prepping Video Pods

The VAR Guy has a motto: If the door isn’t locked, he’s going in. About an hour ago, The VAR Guy wandered into the Venetian Hotel’s main conference hall at Cisco’s Partner Summit. There were 2,500 empty seats. So The VAR Guy grabbed one. Cisco executives were rehearsing presentations to be given later today. What are they preparing to demo? How about concept technology that ties together health care, video conferencing and TelePresence.

First, some background. As you likely know, Cisco is promoting next-generation video conferencing technology called TelePresence. Cisco itself expects to cut its own travel costs by 20 percent using the technology across its headquarters and branch offices. Within the next few months, Cisco may fine-tune TelePresence for several vertical markets. Imagine the following scenarios:

The VAR Guy needs to clarify all of these scenarios: They’re concepts that Cisco is currently exploring. The health care video pods were originally known within Cisco as “MediPods.” But Cisco changed the name out of respect for a certain iPhone maker. The new name for MediPod is HealthPresence. It’s safe to say Cisco will evaluate FinancialPresence, RetailPresence and other vertical market extensions to the “TelePresence” name.

Cisco will demonstrate the HealthPresence video pod later today during the conference. In fact, a concept HealthPresence pod currently sits on stage in the main conference hall at the Venetian.