Is Telepresence the Future of Video Conferencing?

For the last year or so, “telepresence” has been a big buzz word in the conferencing industry. Large industry players like Cisco and Hewlett-Packard offer full corporate telepresence solutions that take up entire rooms and allow life-like communication with people in remote locations. But is telepresence going to altogether replace standard video conferencing solutions?

Telepresence solutions strive to make online meetings as realistic as possible. Desks, monitors, and directional microphones and speakers make it seem that you are actually talking directly to a person instead of blankly looking at a camera. While this solution might be the most comfortable and “futuristic” way to communicate, it’s expensive and not necessarily the most productive.

Traditional video conferencing, offered in a wide variety of flavors, is a much more cost effective solution with additional features to enhance collaboration. Whiteboarding, discrete messaging, file sharing and other features allow you to not only see the person you’re communicating with, but collaborate with them on projects simultaneously.

While telepresence may replace board meetings with disparate board members and company officers, as a stand alone technology in a tightening economy it seems inefficient. I think that eventually, telepresence and typical video conferencing systems will merge into a single type of collaboration communication as technology and adoption of the services increase. For now, video conferencing services like InstantPresenter that offer full video conferencing, web conferencing and webinar services at a fraction of the cost of telepresence seems like a much more efficient solution for your business.