Cisco integrates Tandberg videoconferencing kit

Cisco has added its Telepresence Interoperability Protocol to Tandberg products to offer interoperability between both videoconferencing portfolios.

The move comes just two months after Cisco completed its acquisition of Tandberg, and underlines the firm's commitment to pushing its telepresence protocol across the industry.

Cisco announced the protocol in January as part of a drive to encourage the take-up of videoconferencing by ensuring that different systems can communicate internally and externally.

The standard will be made commercially available from July to allow other operators to make products compatible with those from Cisco and Tandberg.

"With the offerings announced today, we are delivering accessibility, flexibility and scalability to our customers, and making telepresence for everyone a reality," said Fredrik Halvorsen, general manager of Cisco's TelePresence group.

Cisco has also integrated its inTouch technology with the Tandberg C Series Profile product to offer a more user-friendly experience by improving the quality of the touch-screen interface.

The company's Movi technology for Mac clients, meanwhile, is designed to deliver business-quality mobile video collaboration for Mac and PC users, and bridge standards-based video collaboration for both operating systems.

Movi is the first Cisco TelePresence product to integrate its ClearPath technology that improves resolution on suboptimal networks by reducing the effects of packet loss, the firm said.

In related news, Polycom announced a new telepresence offering today that it claims offers HD videoconferencing while using half the bandwidth of comparable systems.