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October 22, 2006

Microsoft Office Roundtable v. Polycom

Michael Arrington

22 comments »

Microsoft is releasing a new hardware device, called Microsoft Office Roundtable, in mid 2007. It will integrate with Live Meeting (Microsoft’s WebEx competitor) and allow for very easy plug and play video conferencing - just plug it into any computer that has Live Meeting or Microsoft Communication Server. The device will retail for $3,000.

This may be less of a competitive concern for WebEx than Polycom, who make a living selling very high end video and voice conference calling hardware. If Roundtable does everything promised (on the fly video conferencing, integration with Office and a whiteboard and a “360-degree, panoramic video of side-by-side images of everyone who taking part in the conference,”, this will be a must-have device around the office.

Microsoft says its been testing about 100 of the devices across Microsoft’s Redmond, China and India offices.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 22nd, 2006 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. fear uncertainty doubt generation engine » Blog Archive » Microsoft Office Roundtable and Polycom

    October 22nd, 2006 at 7:42 pm

  2. TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » 「Microsoft Office Roundtable」 vs Polycom

    October 23rd, 2006 at 1:42 am

  3. Embracing Chaos

    October 26th, 2006 at 9:57 am

  4. dailywireless.org » Blog Archive » Cisco Telepresence

    October 28th, 2006 at 12:45 am

  5. TechCrunch en français » Recap2.0: les autres billets de la semaine de TechCrunch.com (21/28 oct. 06)

    October 28th, 2006 at 1:17 am

  6. Karib Corner-Blog Reports » Blog Archive » Microsoft Office Roundtable v. Polycom

    July 17th, 2007 at 3:33 am

Comments

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  1. coolnalu

    October 22nd, 2006 at 4:58 pm

    Ah…I sit in the corner on purpose, why do you pull me to the front?

    How would it be displayed on the other side though? They need 360 degree surrounding screen too?

  2. wayne lambright

    October 22nd, 2006 at 4:58 pm

    Wow, this is totaly cool. If they need beta testers put me on the list :-)

  3. Dexter Zafra

    October 22nd, 2006 at 6:04 pm

    This stuff integrates alot of their currently existing technologies. I cant imagine what the administration overhead will be with all of this integration. Very cool stuff!

  4. Mari

    October 22nd, 2006 at 6:22 pm

    There’s another company called Be Here that’s doing something similar with its product TotalView. TotalView launched at DEMOfall last month and purports to be cheaper than Microsoft’s solution. You can see Rafe Needlman’s introduction at DEMO at:
    http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6.....eo.6120357

  5. Phil Gerbyshak

    October 22nd, 2006 at 6:58 pm

    Awesome tool. This is the first I’ve seen of it. I think this would be a great tool for virtual coaches too.

  6. Search Engines WEB

    October 22nd, 2006 at 7:42 pm

    __________________________________________________

    As this technology becomes more Hi tech, it will revolutionize instant global business communication - (but bad news for the airline and hotel industry :-( )

    Later on , it will become the latest plaything of young geeks, …..then, an innovative Web 2.0 firm will attempt to develop an online MySpace killer.

    Then in about a decade- ultimately - it will become 3D. :-)

    The challange that microsoft is working on that will differentiate this from other technologies is the attempt to relate non-verbal communication, and the reflective vs. non-reflective sound and of course integration with Microsoft softwares.

    But be absolutely certain that Google will introduce a service as software version in about one year.

  7. Amit

    October 22nd, 2006 at 9:54 pm

    Polycom has a strong resale deal with Cisco, so I don’t see much of a threat. Most likely, Polycom has something in the works too.

  8. Gotta Wonder

    October 23rd, 2006 at 12:27 am

    Where have you guys been? First saw Roundtable on this post way back in June.

    See the demo of the camera here: http://www.humanproductivityla.....dtable.php

  9. alanp

    October 23rd, 2006 at 5:47 am

    Hmmm…mid 2007 for $3000 eh?

    Alternatively, Webcam $30 + a bit of smart mashup work and a webservice…..VideoSkype for Biz anyone?

    You read it here first. ;)

  10. eas

    October 23rd, 2006 at 8:46 am

    I helped champion the first round of internal funding to get ringcam out of research and on track to become a commercial product, what, 4 years ago. I’ll be interested to see what the shipping product is like. Somehow, I suspect all my favorite features will have been cut.

    AlanP, a $30 webcam + “some smart mashup work,” really? I kinda doubt it.

  11. km4

    October 23rd, 2006 at 9:57 am

    First the REAL value of videoconferencing is questionable sorta like having meetings without a real purpose or agenda..

    How with “360-degree, panoramic video of side-by-side images of everyone who taking part in the conference,” there’s more cause for ‘posing and showing’ with less REAL work getting done.

    Finally the best meetings are usually 1 on 1 or very few people in attendance.

    Do you really need Microsoft Office Roundtable for this ?

    No !

  12. km4

    October 23rd, 2006 at 9:58 am

    correction: Now with “360-degree…

  13. eas

    October 23rd, 2006 at 1:30 pm

    km4, people can’t always be in the same room, and a phone call doesn’t always do the job, especially if its a conference call where most of the participants are in a room together, but one or two people are remote. Giving the remote participants a better way to keep track of who is saying what, and to whom, is likely to increace the value of remote conferencing.

    Perhaps there will be more grandstanding, but I kind of doubt it, especially if the remote participants can see that everyone in the room is shaking their heads in disgust while the monologue unwinds.

  14. alanp

    October 23rd, 2006 at 3:23 pm

    @eas

    …I was being tongue in cheek above, but with a serious message. Its all on the post in my blog (link in the post above) but in essence the 80/20 of webcon is fairly mundane small team meeting stuff - so why not do Web conf as a Web service using a “free ride” on existing gear rather than invest in a lot of specialised stuff?

  15. Frank Cefalu

    October 23rd, 2006 at 11:11 pm

    km4 That is the dumbest comment I’ve heard. You never been in a corporate office have you? Corporate Office Meetings YOUR ALREADY POSING and SHOWING! No one is there in shorts and picking their asses. Damn man. Go troll some other product. Your comments have no base. Join alanp on Skype.

    @alanp 14, there is reason for specialized products as they have a footing and a real need. Cheap free services will not do. You evidently don’t know the advantages of windows enterprise server, and a office interlinked with citrix. Maybe we should also start getting payed 20,000 max pay as developers in India do. This is silly Alan. Because you cannot see yourself using this product doesnt make it absolete. Instead think who may use this. Is there a market for this? Yes, absolutely!. I can name 30 products off the top of my head by IBM that are higher cost than this and are bought quite regularly.

    Fact of the matter is that these comments are made out of ignorance with no basis.

  16. alanp

    October 25th, 2006 at 2:38 pm

    Guys, you have to think out of the VideoCon box here.

    I was at a presentation yesterday on 2nd Life where an IBM guy said they were doing virtual Videocons on 2nd Life, and an amazing result was that the avatars were hanging around for water cooler conversations afterwards, which you don’t get in a Videocon

    Oh, and Frank….I was messing about with Citrix 10 years ago and ASP’s 5 years ago. Fat, cheap broadband changes a *lot* of accepted corporate norms.

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