Press Release from HP

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 22, 2009 - HP today established a new category in videoconferencing with the introduction of HP SkyRoom - affordable, high-definition videoconferencing software that offers live, real-time collaboration for instant face-to-face meetings with no subscription fees.

HP SkyRoom is based on breakthrough video and image communication technology developed in HP Labs, the company's central research arm. Elements of this technology were used by NASA's Mars rovers to transfer high-resolution images back to Earth.

HP SkyRoom is the only videoconferencing tool to offer live collaboration for up to four people over a standard business network for $149 - less than the cost of round-trip airfare from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Until now, companies have had only two options for videoconferencing - expensive enterprise telepresence systems or Internet freeware tools that strip out the subtleties of human interactions and don't allow for the sharing of rich media content such as video and computer-aided design manipulation.

HP SkyRoom will be included as a standard feature - at no cost - on select HP business desktop and mobile workstations and for free for a trial period on many upcoming HP premium business PCs and notebooks. HP SkyRoom can be used on workstations or PCs from Dell, Lenovo or Sun that meet minimum technology requirements. Companies now have the power to change the economics of travel and reduce their carbon footprint while preserving the value of personal human interaction.

"Finally, video meetings with genuine eye contact and natural human interaction are as easy as starting an instant messaging connection," said Jim Zafarana, vice president and general manager, Workstations, HP. "It takes business productivity and collaboration to a completely new level when we can connect people around the world in a day via HP SkyRoom and let them get home to family dinner and bedtime stories - without the wear and tear of travel."With HP SkyRoom, users can share any type of application supported on their PC or workstation, including office documents, streaming video and interactive 3-D applications:

* Digital content and engineering teams can collaborate on     sophisticated design concepts, allowing tremendous flexibility and performance for sharing content and visually rich human conversations. *    Production houses can preview animation clips to dispersed teams for live, instant feedback. *    Financial teams spread across the world can run live models for discussion and collaboration.

Using HP SkyRoom is as easy as beginning an instant message conversation. Users simply click a contact to connect, which quickly initiates a live SkyRoom session. Another click shares the desktop or rich media content, and participants are instantly collaborating. During an HP SkyRoom session, information is transferred at a rate four times faster than the blink of an eye.

HP SkyRoom is the culmination of three years of research to design video and image compression algorithms by HP Labs into a customer-centric implementation by the HP Workstation team, which designs professional-quality solutions in collaboration with industry-leading brands around the globe. The breakthrough innovation behind HP SkyRoom comes from the combination of high-definition, multiuser videoconferencing and a sophisticated capability to share display information more securely than with actual transfer of data and processing functions.