MSPmentor

Cisco Systems expects its TelePresence sales to grow 400 percent this year, according to Richard McLeod (pictured), Cisco’s director of unified communications, worldwide channels. That growth could introduce new opportunities to managed service providers.

Admittedly, TelePresence — the next generation video conferencing technology — had a slow start because of high prices and the limited number of solutions providers trained to support the technology. Here’s what’s changing.

During our conversation yesterday, McLeod said:

• Cisco has now shipped more than 1,000 TelePresence units to more than 200 customers.
• Several customers have completed more than 50 TelePresence deployments each.
• Some large companies have triple-digit deployments.
• Cisco’s newer CTS 500 technology takes TelePresence right to the  desktop.

For service providers, the bigger opportunity involves deploying TelePresence in hotel and resort conference rooms; airport terminal meeting rooms; and other locations where executives can  travel short distances to have virtual meetings with partners and peers across the globe.

We’ve covered TelePresence managed services quite a bit in revent months. (Here’s a quick link to all of our TelePresence coverage.) And although the market opportunity remains very small, it’s growing fast.

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