Teleplace

About Teleplace

Founded in 2005 by Clifford Friedland and Greg Nuyens, Teleplace, Inc. operated as a provider of application collaboration solutions tailored for managing data-intensive projects and operations across multiple locations. Initially known as Qwaq, the company developed a 3D virtual workspace environment to facilitate real-time collaboration and conferencing. Greg Nuyens, who served as CEO, brought over two decades of experience as a high-tech entrepreneur, with previous roles including CEO of Devicescape, CTO at Neomar, Inc., and Chief Technologist at Inktomi. His background also includes positions at Sun Microsystems' Internet client/server group and research at Xerox PARC.

Teleplace's core business centered on providing immersive collaboration software that allowed organizations to implement online 3D virtual workspaces. The company targeted large-scale, highly dispersed commercial and government organizations, including firms in financial services, manufacturing, energy, and healthcare. Its business model was subscription-based, offering a hosted Software as a Service (SaaS) version for a monthly per-user fee, as well as an on-premises server appliance for deployment behind corporate firewalls. This fee included software updates, maintenance, and unlimited voice use.

The platform was built on the open-source Croquet technology and utilized standard XML interfaces and the Python scripting language for integration and customization. Its flagship product enabled users to share and interact with various applications and document formats, such as Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF, within a persistent virtual environment. Key features included integrated VoIP, text chat, webcam video streaming, remote screen sharing, shared web browsers, and interactive whiteboards. The platform's architecture was designed to be scalable, using each user's computer to provide computational power, thereby increasing processing capability as more users joined a space. In May 2011, Teleplace made a significant move by releasing its software to the open-source community as OpenQwaq, a decision aimed at fostering broader market adoption of the technology. In 2012, all intellectual property formerly owned by Teleplace was acquired by 3DICC, a company founded by the original creators of the Qwaq and Teleplace technology.