Monthly Archives: November 2007

Back in January I wrote a post titled Telepresence which covered the concept of extending the Citrix model to better simulate remote environments for the sake of working together across great distances. Recently I attended a Gartner conference in Sydney where Cisco was demonstrating a solution which far exceeded anything I had seen before. Cisco has built a solution that includes not only technology but also the environment to help fool the mind that the meeting is local.

I was taken to a meeting room in North Sydney at the Cisco building there and shown the latest release of Cisco TelePresence . The demonstration used a connection to Singapore. There were no noticeable glitches and the quality for sound and video was excellent. It is a real product and not just a demo. The essence of this product is that it creates the illusion of a meeting room where half of the participants are not in the room. The standard configuration with the 3000 model is to allow for six people sitting on each side.

After the session, it became clear that this would be a boon to business travelers. Instead of having to conduct in person meetings at the cost of thousands (including air fare and lodging), it is possible to use this technology instead. One fellow participant told me afterwards that the system would easily pay for itself in a very short period of time.

I would tend to agree. The initial use case would be for meetings between companies across different countries. It is also clear that it would most benefit executives dealing with very large companies with multiple sites. The cost is still high enough that it could not be justified for every type of meeting but the technology trend points to a time whereby it becomes very easy for an average worker to use this model.

I confess that it would be a great help to me with the meetings that I have. At this point I would not be able to recommend it for my sake due the the complexity of duplicating the environment and the costs associated with both the technology and the “remodeling”.

The first conclusion from this thought is that they will eventually use green screen technology to merge environments so that the furniture fit out wouldn’t be so costly. Of course this probably ruins the illusion on the local side. Also, the trend is towards using holographic projection instead of screens to create a more 3d effect.

Take a look at this latest revelation from Cisco about where this is going. This is a YouTube video shown to me at the conference which shows that Cisco is very keen to progress this technology. Cisco TelePresence Magic video is a good example whereby the area is ripe for introduction. I thought this would take many years to evolve but now I think it is more likely to happen very quickly in the next five to ten years.

From a title like that, it is not that hard to conclude that I am a fan of the Matrix movies. There was something powerful about the first movie that really had not been told before. Besides the fact that they produced a movie with some of the most advanced special effects of the time, the also captured the imaginations of millions of people.

Having worked in the software industry since 1989, certain trends are becoming more and more clear. There has been a number of revelations and advancements in the last 18 years that overshadow the changes that happened before. For example, there was a time that people thought that a 386 might be too much power for one user. Or, the classic, 640K should be more than enough.

The truth is that humans will always expect more of their computer systems. If it is gigabytes today it will easily be terabytes tomorrow. Bandwidth will also grow to attempt to satisfy this unending need. The question becomes, at what point could reality be duplicated? How many bits of information could possible capture the essence of what is real? At what point would it be difficult to tell the difference?

I think the fundamental flaw with this line of thinking is that the world is not based on digital computers. The world is based on the largest form of analog quantum computing possible. This is really just a suggesting since the overall point is that you can never capture reality in its entirety simply because it is way too big and cannot be nailed down. Another way of saying it is that you cannot take one piece of reality without the need to connect it with the other parts of reality. It is the issue of context.

Now before I go waffling on about real versus virtual, let me just say that the dream of capturing reality is largely misguided. The point of virtual worlds should not be about trying to capture the essence of reality but rather focus on fooling the mind based on its weaknesses and assumptions. A truly clear mind would see even through the veil of reality to see the man behind the curtain. A mind that is easily distracted will also be easily fooled.

Places like Second Life are attempting to generate an environment that users can participate in as if it was more lifelike. There has been a lot of hype about it in the last year and I am sure that it is worth investigating. However, the question becomes “Why?”. One angle is to do things in a virtual world that would be impossible in a real one. This invites a strange mix of entrepreneurs, dreamers, and the oldest profession. The thinking would go along the lines that reality is restricting and a virtual environment allows anything. This makes it a bit like the Old West with the lack of law enforcement. Perhaps it makes a great environment for those that feel repressed but where does it leave the rest of the world?

The greatest power of the matrix is it’s ability to fool the senses. It is so real, that your mind thinks its real. That power not only controls you but also gives you a sense of security. Once you realize the nature of the matrix, you know that there is nothing that can hold you back. Instead of fighting the system, perhaps you will realize that you are the system. For how can any matrix withstand the memory of how it was brought to bear.

Virtualization is really an attempt to transform something real into something unreal. The overall goal is to make everything in that environment believe the fundamental lie to bring everything in line so that everything just works as it always did. This was IBM’s big revelation in the 60′s with its mainframes and now that industry is finally signally strength in the PC environment. I am glad that it is finally happening this way and many good things will come from this advancement. As one of those benefits is the concept of keeping old applications and data. Another benefit is the potential for easy powerful upgrades based on new hardware technology. Also, it allows for a much more dynamic nature with regards to location and migration. It is no longer restricted to specific hardware.

The reality is that virtualization is getting good enough to fool most software. Even better, it is getting more embedded with the chips that run it (based on the extensions of Intel and AMD). The trend is strong and clear. Virtualization is going to transform not only the way our computers get their work done but also give the users and administrators the power to do their work regardless of what happens to hardware and software platforms.

The good news is that computers are good at virtualizing themselves. They know the rules and they know the codes. It really is just a matter of putting together a system that performs well enough to fool the average user.

It is also good that Citrix has decided to enter this market. It is key to be involved with this transformation into a more unified environment. There are several flags waving and Citrix has made a strategic decision not only to pick a flag but to also buy it as well. That might put other companies at odds but this is really about Citrix trying to build a complete solution from end to end. Virtualization is a hot market now and makes sense for a long term investment.