Cisco Hosts First Virtual, All Video Global Company Meeting

Now imagine it on the scale of one large conference room to another, and that was the August 23 technical demonstration at the first of its kind virtual Cisco global company meeting.

The Cisco campus in San Jose utilized its very own TelePresence technology to have a virtual worldwide company meeting -- piping in people from Bedfont Lakes, Amsterdam, Bangalore and other US locations.

Through TelePresence, Cisco Chairman and CEO, John Chambers, and other executive presenters connected point-to-point from San Jose, CA with seven other Cisco locations around the world: Bangalore, India; Bedfont Lakes, UK; Amsterdam; RTP, NC; Atlanta, GA; Boxborough, MA; and Irvine, CA. In addition, Executive Vice President, Wim Elfrink, presented via TelePresence from the Cisco Globalization Center in Bangalore, India. The meeting was also broadcast via Cisco IPTV to employees worldwide. Over 700 employees attended "in person" via Cisco TelePresence and over 4,000 tuned in via Cisco IPTV. Future virtual meetings will include sites in other countries and time zones.

This global effort showcased collaboration at its finest - all lifesize high-definition video image, and it was as (nearly) simple as making a phone call to these locations.

"We are entering a phase where dramatic innovation and productivity increases will be enabled by collaboration and Web 2.0 technologies. Cisco is well positioned to lead this market transition and we must begin by using the technology ourselves," explains Blair Christie, vice president of Corporate Communications. "We are a global company, and we wanted as many employees as possible to actively participate in the meeting without having to be physically located in San Jose."

"Holding this meeting via TelePresence represented our biggest demo of this technology ever," says Jim Grubb, chief demonstration fficer. "Take 14 TelePresence units to link employees worldwide; then add in our Cisco TV viewers, and what you get is the largest virtual meeting we've ever produced. This is a new model for how companies can communicate on a global basis."

During the meeting, employees also had birthday cake at all locations to celebrate Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chamber's birthday today.-Cisco