Cisco to acquire Tandberg Networking giant says $US3 billion deal will bolster its collaboration and video portfolio

Cisco is moving deeper into the AV area by taking over Tandberg. They already worked together but now it will become an integrated part of Cisco. After taking over a relative smallplayer called FLIP (from the flip cameras) it's now time for a big fish:)

Cisco has announced its intention to acquire video conferencing and communication vendor, Tandberg.

According to a press statement, Cisco has commenced a cash tender off to purchase all company shares for approximately $US3 billion. The proposal has been unanimously recommended by Tandberg’s board of directors. Norway-based Tandberg is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and has 1500 employees worldwide.

The acquisition is expected to close during the first half of next year but is subject to closing conditions as well as regulatory reviews in the US and elsewhere.

"Cisco and Tandberg have remarkably similar cultures and a shared vision to change the way the world works through collaboration and video communications technologies," Cisco chairman and CEO, John Chambers, said in a statement. "Collaboration is a $US34 billion market and is growing rapidly – enabled by networked Web 2.0 technologies. This acquisition showcases Cisco's financial strength and ability to quickly capture key market transitions for growth."

Cisco said it planned to integrate Tandberg’s video endpoints and network infrastructure solution into its collaboration architecture.

“This will enable intercompany and multi-vendor interoperability and ease of use across the full product portfolio – from desktop to immersive, multi-screen TelePresence. This interoperability will benefit Cisco's customers, but also competitors and partners by accelerating customer interest in video collaboration globally,” Cisco said in a press statement.

Coming Soon: Microsoft's Beefed-Up 720p LifeCam Cinema Webcam

Not sure how this will impact telepresence but the introduction of the first HD webcam by Microsoft will have impact on the ability to use video messaging when working from anywhere. So far I did not like the video possibility in MSN, Skype or OCS but this might change how I feel about it since it promises a quality that will make it useable and beyond the nice for teens, family abroad and geeks groups.


By Danny Allen, 1:30 AM on Tue Aug 18 2009(Edit, to draft, Slurp)

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Looks like Microsoft's working on a snazzy new glass lens Webcam capable of 720p video at 30fps (in full 1280x720 resolution). Other features are expected to include 4x digital zoom, and a built-in noise-cancelling microphone.

The camera is made from aluminum and has a stand designed to work with both desktops and laptops. Pocket-link goes on to say that:

The LifeCam Cinema is of course compatible with Windows Live Messenger, but also with Windows Live Movie Maker and Windows Live Photo Gallery. It's also compatible with Windows 7 out of the box, as well as Windows Vista and Windows XP.

We've seen 720p Webcams before but the video specs on this one look quite promising. The Lifecam Cinema is expected to be $80 when it hits stores on September 9.

Researchers Make Paper Stereo Speakers .... now just combine them with the ink-wallpaper

ok, the next cool thing is the flexible speaker. Can you imagine a poster of your fav. artist that also plays his/her/their music or a poster of a movie playing the theme:) And the nice thing is they are working on a BT version as well. This would definately deliver wife proof surround sound speakers (but you still need a subwoofer). It also has the potential to recreate projection screens. Imagine a projection screen where the center speaker actually is the screen reflecting the sounds coming from the screen. Would be great in videoconferencing. Now just connect is to the technology to create interactive wallpaper and the wallpaper is not just an image but a movie with sound

The article as published at PCWorld:

A Taiwanese research group has developed stereo speakers in paper, which will lead to low-cost speakers perfect for thin devices such as LCD TVs or even talking movie posters to be used as advertisements.

Engineers at Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) have already produced rolls of paper stereo speakers and say they will be used in cars starting from next year. They are also planning a splash introduction of the new technology at a big exhibition in Taipei next year in which they will unroll a three-story high banner that can blare out tunes.

"A lot of companies are interested in this product," said Chen Ming-daw, a research director at ITRI. "We don't have enough people to handle all the attention right now."
They call it Flexpeaker because you can roll it up or fold it just like regular paper.
One cool way the technology will be used is on movie posters.

The goal for the researchers is to be able to mass produce standard poster-size speakers (A2, or 60centimeters by 44cm) costing just US$20 each. Movie makers could then put out posters with soundtrack music or movie highlights emanating from them as people walk by.
The special paper is made by sandwiching thin electrodes that receive audio signals and a prepolarized diaphragm into the paper structure. A special Flexpeaker adapter between the MP3 player and the speaker is used to play music through the paper. But in a year, ITRI hope to develop a chip that will do away with the adapter and allow people to plug a digital music player directly into the speaker.

They're also working on wireless technologies.
In July, the group will show off its first Bluetooth enabled paper speaker, which will eliminate the need for wires, said Liou Chang-ho, project manager of ITRI's Flexpeaker initiative.
One limitation with Flexpeaker is that while It's very good with sounds at frequencies between 500Hz to 20KHz, it doesn't handle low frequency sounds well.

That problem can be offset by adding a subwoofer to any system with the paper speakers, said Liou. That's the idea ITRI is working on for LCD TV makers. The paper speakers are so thin that they're perfect for the current push to ultra thin LCD TVs, a maker simply has to add a subwoofer to make a quality sound system.

ITRI is already working with a company to produce the speakers in rolls, like rolls of paper.
"Once it's being made in rolls, the cost will drop a lot," said Liou.

Crisis, What crisis........not everybody is in crisis

Ok we do have a crisis but this is not by definition a bad thing. Car repair centers, fastfood and cheap food (bit of the same) restaurants, and videconference companies are doing great right now. According to the latest figures videoconferencing is growing fast.

Although the sales in the US is not really growing Europe is growing very fast and focussing on hight definition. According to Gartner in 2012 we will book 2.1 million less plane tickets due to videoconferencing.

This makes videoconferencing an interesting market and it's pretty clear why Cisco and HP want their share (and so does Microsoft with OCS). This has not been unnoticed by the traditional video conferencing manufacturers like Polycom. As a matter of fact, Polycom is fighting back and bringing VC to the desktop with an application that also provides application/desktop sharing, chatting etc. Kind of OCS like functionality. Hope they make this compatible with OCS (currently less than 15% of the VTC systems are connected to OCS) so customers have a choice, not just for a specific brand but also for different situations (guess it all comes down to $$$$)