Cisco TANDBERG Deal Ushers in New Era of Collaboration

April 21, 2010 - PRLog -- Dubai, United Arab Emirates  – The official announcement that the offer by Cisco to purchase TANDBERG, the Norwegian-based video conferencing company for $3.4 billion cash, has been finalised, ushers in a new era of collaboration and will accelerate the worldwide adoption of visual communications.  

That’s according to Ettienne Reinecke, CTO of Dimension Data, the $4 billion global IT solutions and services provider, who says the merger is a boon for organisations looking for enhanced growth and productivity using video collaboration.  

“As the leading global partner for both Cisco and TANDBERG with more certifications and experience integrating TANDBERG and Cisco technologies than any other organisation, Dimension Data is very excited about this transaction.  The comprehensive portfolio of the two companies, supported by Cisco’s powerful marketing engine means we can now address a broader range of clients’ visual needs and business objectives.”

Reinecke says Dimension Data has partnered closely with TANDBERG to deliver numerous collaboration solutions which include integration and interoperability with Microsoft OCS.  He points out that the Group has worked with Cisco and their collaboration suite, and strongly believes the partnership will accelerate the trend from basic voice to a rich multi-media experience.

“We are unmatched in our experience, putting us in a strong position to deliver the most comprehensive set of unified communications and collaboration solutions in the world.  With the network as the enabler and video at the core, IT departments can look forward to the widest array of choices that will help them efficiently achieve their business objectives, as well as a more seamless integration of critical infrastructure in the rapidly growing $34 billion collaboration market.”

While the transaction is subject to Cisco divesting ownership of its proprietary Telepresence Interoperability Protocol - a protocol used to communicate between Cisco telepresence products and third party video-conferencing products – Reinecke believes Cisco and TANDBERG will deliver on their goal to create and drive interoperability standards for any organisation to use, and in turn pave the way for new business models in the collaboration market.

“This bodes well for Dimension Data and particularly for our clients. Dimension Data itself uses video conferencing to reduce travel costs.  In 2009 alone, travel costs of our senior management were cut by 20% without reducing crucial realtime, face-to-face contact that makes for successful leadership.”

Nader Atout, Managing Director – Gulf Region, Dimension Data says, “We wholeheartedly welcome this news. Our clients in the Middle East will definitely benefit from the Cisco TANDBERG deal. The availability of the widest range of unified communications and collaboration solutions combined with our global leadership and experience in deploying both Cisco and Tandberg technologies will undoubtedly be a winning combination. Our new ‘How Do You Meet Assessment’ tool will act as ready reckoner for organizations looking for enhanced growth and productivity using telepresence whilst reducing costs.”

“According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index Forecast and Methodology 2008-2013 White Paper (June 2009), 90% of all consumer traffic will be video-based by 2013 and will be the sum of all forms of video (TV, video on demand, Internet, and peer to peer (P2P)). Internet video alone will account for over 60% of all consumer Internet traffic in five years. There’s a visual solution for everybody: on the laptop, on the desktop, and in the boardroom,” Reinecke adds.

As a first step to understanding how organisations can benefit from a visual communications solution, Dimension Data has developed the How Do You Meet Assessment. Based on a proven methodology, the assessment identifies and analyses how employees meet, work together, communicate and collaborate.  Dimension Data analysts provide recommendations on how to increase productivity, dramatically lower travel costs, speed up collaboration, make coordination between cross-functional teams easier, and reduce the physical footprint and help organisations become more environmentally friendly.

About Dimension Data
Dimension Data plc (LSE:DDT), a specialist IT services and solution provider, helps clients plan, build, support and manage their IT infrastructures. Dimension Data applies its expertise in networking, converged communications, security, data centre and storage, Microsoft and contact centre technologies, and its unique skills in consulting, integration and managed services to create customised client solutions. www.dimensiondata.com
Alternative quotes to be used could be:
1.   This announcement endorses the importance of our visual strategy and our focus on this area with both Cisco and TANDBERG. It also validates our assertion that their offerings are more complimentary than competitive.
2.   We have seen early mass adoption of these systems with several projects underway with multiple thousand endpoints.
3.   For clients this is good news as it will bring two core vendors together and give them longer term assurance - and remove vendor conflict. It also will ease inter-operability and integration between various communication systems, setting them on a more integrated suite of communications channels. Having voice, data, video integrated much more seamlessly is everybody's objective