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.

RoundTable was invented and originally developed by Dr Ross Cutler at Microsoft Research

Microsoft Research

Microsoft Research is the research division of Microsoft created in 1991 for developing various computer science ideas and integrating them into Microsoft products. It currently employs Turing Award winners C.A.R. Hoare, Butler Lampson, and Charles P...

. It ran under Windows CE

Windows CE

Microsoft Windows CE is an operating system developed by Microsoft for embedded systems. Windows CE is a distinct operating system and kernel, rather than a trimmed-down version of desktop Windows...

.

As of the 14th April 2009 the Roundtable device was discontinued and the hardware was rebranded as the Polycom

Polycom

Polycom is a multinational corporation with approximately 3,200 employees worldwide and an annual revenue of approximately $1.2 billion in 2010. The company manufactures and sells telepresence and voice communications solutions.-Company History 1990:...

CX5000. The device has an identical feature set but is branded as a Polycom unit.

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

Product Reviews

• InfoWorld review of RoundTable
• PC World review of RoundTable
• TMCNet review of RoundTable