I think this sort of telerobotics is going to be a growth area in the next 5-10 years. All of the necessary technologies have been coming into place within the last decade, and there are some compelling reasons for using such devices - avoiding unnecessary and expensive business trips, and helping to reduce energy consumption and pollution. I can think of past occasions in my own career where having one of these robots at a customer site would have saved a lot of time and money, and resulted in a much more rapid diagnosis of issues.