Monday, March 02, 2009

Federal Gov't Invests $13.8M in Telepresence

The Federal Department of Finance in Australia will deploy 20 Telepresence units: 13, 3-screen CTS 3000's (USD: $299,000) and seven single screen CTS 1000's (USD: $59,000) to link seven Commonwealth offices, Prime Minister and Cabinet Offices and the offices of Premiers and Chief Minister agencies in every state and territory.

This is the largest Government deployment of Cisco Telepresence in the world to date.

On the assumption that an average business class domestic flight costs around $700 (with flexible business class fares in Australia ranging from $300 to up to $2000), the system would need to enable ministers to defer travel on some 20,000 occasions before the Finance Department could calculate a direct financial benefit from the system.

Today, Cisco Systems conducts over 4,000 Telepresence meetings and the combination of Telepresence and WebEx has reduced corporate travel by more than $400M year over year. The average cost per employee for travel has also been reduced by almost 50%.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert