Microsoft RoundTable
Microsoft RoundTable was a videoconferencing device with a 360-degree camera that was designed to work with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 or Microsoft Office Live Meeting. RoundTable provided remote meeting participants with panoramic video of everyone sitting around the conference table. In addition, RoundTable contained active speaker detection technology that provides high-resolution video of the active speaker in a meeting, and tracked the flow of conversation in real time, switching between different meeting participants as they speak.
RoundTable was a plug-and-play USB device that also functioned as a standard PSTN speakerphone.
Core technology used in RoundTable was invented and originally developed by Dr Ross Cutler and other researchers at Microsoft Research. Dr. Cutler joined the RoundTable product group led by GM Jeff Finan to commercialize the technology. The product launched in 2007. It used the Windows CE operating system.
In 2009 the Roundtable device was licensed to Polycom and rebranded as the Polycom CX5000.[1] The device has an identical feature set but is branded as a Polycom unit. Polycom has since launched two new products based upon the RoundTable design - the CX5100 and the CX5500.
External links
- Microsoft RoundTable - Official RoundTable product page on Microsoft website (Now leads to Microsoft Lync)
- Microsoft RoundTable product datasheet - On Microsoft website
- Polycom CX5000 - Official Product Page on Polycom website
