Contents at a Glance
– Telepresence Interoperability
– Email Isn’t Dead
– Quick Links

Telepresence Interoperability
Alex argues that the lack of interoperability between telepresence systems is a big dampener on adoption, and therefore is pleased to see the work of Virtela (see No Jitter).

“A connection into their cloud gives you a high performance connection to almost everyone else. This is nice on general purposes, but it’s essential for cross-network telepresence.

However, no one yet has addressed the issue of cross-vendor telepresence interoperability. I see this as the magic bullet to start the adoption flood. The significant cost investment becomes a little easier to swallow when you’re confident your solution will play nicely with everyone else. Whomever comes to market with a built-in solution for interoperability will have a significant advantage in the telepresence land grab.“

Analysis
I recall when interoperability with instant messaging was a big concern, and of course people just got around it by having multiple clients ready. It took a while to happen … and the same will play out here. My take: organizations that need telepresence today are the early adopters for whom interoperability is a nice to have … the next group on the curve will list it as a must have.

Email isn’t Dead
Recent research by ShareThis found that their users used email 35% of the time to share things with others.

“In fact, e-mail is used the same as the top 6 major Social Media sites combined (Facebook, MySpace, digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon & Reddit). Lesson to Brand Managers: Social Media is a rising force in the digital world. But don’t forget that traditional digital like e-mail is still a very, very big player that isn’t going away soon.“

Analysis
35% is still a big number, but it’s a lot less than it used to be. There was a Kubi Software report in … 2002 or something … that put the number at 95%. That’s a big change in 5 years. My sense is that when email is being used, it is because the recipient hasn’t embraced any of the newer tools.

Quick Links

• VyewMyPC … Vyew released VyewMyPC, for instant desktop sharing, whiteboarding and web conferencing. “VyewMyPC is a free service from Vyew and the first in a series of quick-start solutions that Vyew is developing for desktop sharing, content review and approval, screen capturing and session recording. VyewMyPC provides the same desktop-sharing and conferencing functionality found in expensive solutions for free with no software to install.” Available immediately.
• TaskCoach Synchronization … Task Coach released a SyncML extension for its task management application, for sync’ing with a Funambol server.