DENVER, CO, Nov. 3, 2009 (Marketwire) --

DENVER, CO -- (Marketwire) -- 11/03/09 -- Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) today announced that more than 35 higher education institutions have purchased Cisco TelePresence to scale expertise, foster more open innovation between academic and private industry researchers and develop innovative distance learning programs that benefit from in-person collaboration. Many educational institutions are facing difficult challenges with fewer resources and increasing demands. Cisco TelePresence helps address these challenges by providing colleges and universities with an immersive, life-like communications experience, realistically conveying the body language and human elements that are critical to the interactive nature of a traditional classroom. Professors are able to address students across multiple campuses virtually as though they were sitting in the same room, record lectures for future viewing, collaborate with other experts on academic research, and bring classrooms together around the world to engage in an interactive, face-to-face learning environment.

Facts/Highlights:

• With Cisco TelePresence, educational institutions can bring teachers and professors with specialized expertise to students around the world efficiently and economically; empower richer and more productive collaboration for research purposes and create new educational opportunities, such as global classrooms and customized executive education programs.
• Virtual learning environments created by using Cisco TelePresence help colleges and universities embrace environmental sustainability goals through the reduction of travel, while extending the reach of university experts and attracting new students.
• Several of the nation's top research universities, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, Purdue University, Stanford University, among others, utilize Cisco TelePresence to increase the frequency of "in-person" collaboration with colleagues at other universities, helping speed new developments and improve ongoing research collaboration to foster more open innovation.
• Cisco TelePresence creates more open, collaborative relationships between academic and private industry researchers, helping speed innovation and share resources via intercompany, or business-to-business, Cisco TelePresence connections enabled by service providers worldwide.
• Cisco is working closely with U.S.-based national research network, National LambdaRail (NLR), to drive the advancement of Cisco TelePresence connections among higher education institutions.