Telepresence fray lures Tandberg, Polycom

Telepresence is one of the newest technology toys in telecom, and early promoters like Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and Microsoft are now being joined by other vendors, some of them already big names in videoconferencing. Tandberg just announced a new partnership with Nortel that will allow the company to tap into Nortel's global network management capabilities while pursuing its own spin on telepresence, bringing the technology into packages for all kinds of business customers. In other telepresence news, Tandberg and another long-standing conferencing firm, Polycom, separately partnered with Microsoft.

Frost & Sullivan last year said the market for telepresence products and services would hit $1.3 billion by 2013, and the agency may issue an even brighter forecast within the coming months. The question now is where carriers fit in: Are they incorporating telepresence in their unified communications packages and managed services portfolios? Now may be the time to do so.

For more:
- see this story about the Tandberg news at Light Reading
- read this story about the Polycom news at Telephony
- check out this cover story about telepresence at Telephony

Related article:
- Cisco and Nortel have been battling on the telepresence front