‘Virtual reality, augmented reality will shape the way people collaborate in future’ – Economic Times

BENGALURU: Emerging technologies like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and real-time language translation are going to play a significant role in shaping the way people collaborate in future, says Jeffrey Rodman, cofounder of Polycom, one of Silicon Valley's earliest video and content collaboration companies.

Considered as one of the pivotal figures in shaping the now known Silicon Valley, Rodman has spent close to three decades founding and building Polycom. The 26-year-old company makes speakers and video conferencing systems to collaborate with colleagues at workstations and other larger informal settings.

Enter your office conference room and the probability that you wouldn't come across the sound station speaker is very slim.

The triangular device - which now comes in several sophisticated models - was pioneered by Polycom's design team during their early days in the 90s.

"[The triangular sketch] was only another small thing, but it was so powerful, it became the symbol of the company for a while," recounts Rod man in a Medium post.

Rodman believes technologies like VR, which are `massive and clunky' right now, will go through incre mental changes and easy to wear.

BENEFITS GALORE "At some point, they may represent a real benefit for Polycom or its users," he said, adding, "Also, we will come to a place where we are going to have biological implants. The things will happen."

He also said in most of these technologies, Polycom would be more o a user than a developer helping the company provide innovative ways for collaboration in the future. Rodman and Brian L Hinman co founded Poly com in 1990 and since have grown the startup into a billion-dollar company over the past two-and-a-half decades.

In July 2016, the company was acquired by Siris Capital Group for a grand sum of $2 billion.

When asked to compare Silicon Valley with the Indian startup ecosystem, Rodman said: "India has a deep skill set born out of working with American companies and participating in a pretty substantial slice of innovation and product development. With this kind of skill sets and resources, it's only natural that India is moving off to form more startups of their own."

He said startups should not be distracted by million-dollar investments and should take small steps to achieve big goals.

"There is something very tempting about saying let's start a business and get rich. One of the mistakes people and companies make is to go into something without a complete vision or a plan... Without having a view of where you are headed to, you are likely to be deluded," Rodman said.

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'Virtual reality, augmented reality will shape the way people collaborate in future' - Economic Times