[cisco-voip] OT: Cisco Telepresence vs. independant setups

[Robert Kulagowski]

On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 8:43 AM, Lelio Fulgenzi <lelio at uoguelph.ca> wrote:
>
> I'm trying to get my head around the benefits of deploying a Cisco
> telepresence solution (TMS, VCS, C60, Movi, etc) vs simply buying one off
> Polycom units that dial each other and bridges when necessary. I understand
> the centralized address book, but what else? It seems like I'm building a
> contained solution that needs additional equipment and licenses in order to
> talk to these other devices, i.e. VCS Expressway.

We went with a hybrid solution; TMS for centralized address book,
GnuGK for our H.323 gatekeeper / proxy to the internet, Polycom
endpoints. There wasn't a cost justification to deploy the
triple-screen TP suite (back when it was a custom build,
room-within-a-room) at $500K each, and we wouldn't have been able to
talk to anyone anyway.

Polycom HDX 8000's are "good enough", especially if you can't get the
rest of the planet to deploy "true" telepresence.