Comments on: Managed TelePresence Services Reach Tipping Point

By: Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:56:09 +0000

Alex: It was a lucky guess on my part. Let me know what you hear about that 4th player, how they’re feeling about the risk, early potential rewards, etc. I’m all ears if/when they’d like to share more info.
-jp

By: Alex

Alex — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:33:55 +0000

Joe – you were right, the telepresence system did not cost the Hotel a dime. Evidently there is a 4th player in the mix (Cisco, AT&T, Starwood, and …). From what I was told the 4th player is taking on the business risk. Seems to be a very big risk to me given the effectiveness of Vonei, WebEx, and the other web conferencing services. Convincing businesses to spend $100+/hr might be tough in today’s environment.

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:13:46 +0000

Interesting point Joe. I have a contact at Starwood and I’ll ask him to see if he knows their financial arrangement. The model could be similar to Kinkos or Regus where they rent time on the system, which I’ve seen is $100+/hour. Perhaps the hotels get more revenue from the room lease than they would by revenue sharing with the web conferencing companies. And the salesperson and marketing person from Cisco get their quotas covered so it works for them. AT&T may be taking the business model risk in this case.

As a user I see no need to pay that amount of money just to hold video conferences which I can do with my laptop and webcam from my office, home, or Panera Bread’s wi-fi. I also find it a bit ironic that video conferencing is designed to reduce travel, yet hotels cater to the travel industry…For me give me a low cost service that is location independent with 24×7 access.

By: Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:31:11 +0000

Alex: Thanks for the Vonei tip. And here’s another thought: Perhaps some hotels aren’t paying for the telepresence technology.

I wonder if there’s an inverse business model, where the service provider (AT&T, for instance) “leases” the hotel space for a fixed monthly fee from the hotel. And then the service provider pays for the space by creating a time-share telepresence approach… charging users an hourly fee that more than covers the cost of the leased space plus the technology…

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:11:18 +0000

I think the spread of video conference tools is great, although these hotels are going to have a hard time paying off the cost of these solutions. Not only is there the cost of the equipment, but now you need IT resources to set up and maintain the equipment, you have technology obsolescence, and you need very high bandwidth circuits. Hotels might be better off partnering with a web conferencing company to allow guests to take part of video conferences right from a laptop in their room. I've used Vonei Meeting from hotel rooms with no issue, and I take my account with me when I travel. Vonei Meeting