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An Interview with Christopher Peri
Interviewed by Geetesh Bajaj, August 11th 2006
Dr. Christopher Peri (pictured to the
left) has his credentials in architecture, and delves into
methods that faciliate designers and engineers to network
in real-time. In various capacities, he has been involved at Babcock & Brown
and PureSense Environmental. Currently, he is the CTO
at Simulat, Inc. where he leads development of Vyew, an interactive
browser-based collaborative workspace.
Geetesh: |
Tell us more about yourself and Vyew. |
Christopher: |
My background is in Architecture. I received my PhD from UC
Berkeley. While there I specialized in virtual environments
for designers and engineers. Computing for me was merely
a means to an end. And I still think about computers
in that way. My main interest is the communication of complex
information; be it output from analysis, to 3D models, to
conceptual designs. Mix in the common need of collaboration
in Architecture, and you get an idea of my background.
I have over 20 years of experience in applied computing
with an emphasis on system architecture and GUIs for shared
virtual environments and presentation media. I have served
as a Manager of Content Design & Delivery at Babcock & Brown,
a co-founder of PureSense Environmental, and currently the
CTO at Simulat, Inc.
Vyew 1 was conceived as a quick collaboration
application that can allow a user to initialize a multi-user
meeting in 10 seconds from any typical computer. To achieve
this, Vyew was created using almost all Flash with exception
to Java for the screen capture. Basic features were:
- No application install
- Screen Capture
- Basic whiteboard features
Over time, Vyew expanded to support more functions. By providing
always-on sessions, other users could enter a meeting rooms
and review information or make annotations even when the
creator was not present. By supporting synchronous and asynchronous
environments, we moved away from the ‘presentation’ mode
of most of the well know ‘meeting’ services to
more of an anytime collaboration model.
Vyew 1.5 expanded V1 with the following features and functions:
- Persistent sessions (A session does not end when users
leave the meeting)
- Import of common office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
- Import of common media files (JPG, GIF, SWF, etc.)
- VyewShow – remote viewable image slideshow
with sound.
- Plug-in support (A basic API that external programmers
can use to write custom applications. Some proof
of concept examples include:
- Yahoo! Maps
- Diagramming tools
- Checkers
- Calendar
- Real time desktop viewing (not to be confused with application
sharing)
- Improved permission controls
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Geetesh:
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How is Vyew 2 different and improved from the earlier
version? |
Christopher: |
In this release, a basic change to the architecture greatly
improved not only functionality; but performance and user
accessibility. With only the items to be viewed being loaded
via database calls, each item can be treated as an independent
object. This basic change gave Vyew a PowerPoint feel which
is familiar to more users. This change to the
architecture also allowed objects on a page (called VyewClips)
to be organized into folders (or ‘books’). In
addition to this fundamental change, new features have been
added:
- VyewBooks – objects (VyewClips) can be organized
into books to support multiple meetings. The user
can copy, rename, and delete whole books.
- VyewClips – any object brought to the stage
(images, pages from office, SWFs, etc.) can be:
- moved on the stage
- resized
- reordered to change how they are to be layered
- filtered, based on (user, date) (date not in prerelease)
- Vyewlet (test version) – this is a stripped down
version of Vyew. Basically it will have all of
the stage functionality, but not file management. Primarily
aimed at read only or limited user accessibility. The
Vyewlet can be displayed within other web pages. (not
in prerelease)
- Improved Office document importing – Office documents
are now broken up into pages to allow the user to place
only the pages they want onto the stage as well as two
more pages on the same stage.
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Geetesh: |
Tell us more about your PowerPoint integration features. |
Christopher: |
There really are not new PowerPoint functions per se; but instead
a fundamental change to the philosophy of how Vyew interacts
with users which reflects the way users would interact with
PowerPoint. As well as giving the user individual control
over all elements on the stage as with PowerPoint, a future
version will support simple wizard animation scripting like
PowerPoint. There is a desire to improve import/export
integration with Office documents. This integration will
be greatly influenced on how Microsoft will manage their
new XML format.
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Geetesh: |
Tell us about your support infrastructure. |
Christopher: |
Currently, users can access a rich FAQ and a forum that is
monitored daily by members of the Simulat team. We also have
a 'report bug' button that when selected, attaches session
information as well as the user generated report.
When we leave Beta stage; paid subscribers will be provided
with a phone number for live customer support. |
Geetesh: |
What is your business model? Although you provide
a free solution, many users would like to know more about this
issue to instill confidence. |
Christopher: |
The Vyew business model is software as a service; we will continue
to provide Vyew for free, supported by ads, and we will also
start offering an ad free version with more sophisticated
functions; i.e. a greater number of Vyewbook’s, larger
concurrent user capability, custom skinning, video and audio,
etc. at a monthly fee of around $25.00 per account holder
with unlimited use based on the features selected.
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Geetesh: |
Can you share some trivia about an unconventional
use of Vyew -- or just something you want to share with Indezine
readers? |
Christopher: |
There are lots of examples of people using Vyew for things
I would not have imagined; from analyzing stock quotes to
football plays to teaching math and English. I think
the coolest example that pops to mind is a doctor in South
America using Vyew to send EKG information to his colleagues
in different parts of the world. Here is an excerpt
from an email he sent me…“…Regarding
my work here, I am an advisor for the Peace Efforts, welcoming
those groups that are leaving their guns behind, and trying
to live normal lives (Normal? In such poverty?)
Believe or not, the efforts to offer rehab from drug addiction
to young people involved in this war had been useless. Psychiatry
did not work, neither clinical psychology. Some of them started
to turn around with prayer and one to one support. They dig
that kind of message. I love this work!
Besides that, I work on a major hospital as chief of the
Stress Medicine Unit, giving support to Intensive Care Units,
to Cardiovascular Surgery and Brain Surgery. That's in Medellin
city (Where Pablo Escobar, the mafia capo used to rule).
Regarding telehealth:
Well, we are trying to interconnect small towns in this area,
so we can have a positive effect on mortality by offering
prompt attention. Just imagine you and Vyew helping us early
detect severe cardiac events! |
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