Imagine face-to-face meetings with co-workers that aren’t really face-to-face. Picture a high-definition (HD) virtual meeting experience so real you’ll almost believe you’re in a conference room in Toronto rather than your office in New York. This is typically referred to as ’telepresence. Now envision increasing productivity and reducing travel costs with a quick and painless global implementation of telepresence for your business. That’s what Nortel brings to the table with its new video conferencing services, one of four new network application services announced today as part of Nortel’s Multimedia Services portfolio.

"Companies in transition from multinational fiefdoms to truly global organizations need to conduct business across distances without the limitations and opportunity costs of travel," said Abner Germanow, Enterprise Networks research director at IDC, which expects the global market for telepresence systems to exceed US$1 billion by 2011.

"By mimicking the experience of a live meeting, telepresence technologies enable everyone from corporate jet regulars to employees who rarely travel to manage, collaborate and share expertise without geographic constraints," Germanow said.

Nortel implements, manages and supports video conferencing and HD telepresence for enterprises through non-exclusive relationships with industry leaders, like the one announced today with Polycom for resale of its video solutions including RealPresence(1) Experience High Definition. RPX HD uses large, seamless HD displays and StereoSurround(1) audio to create a realistic environment more conducive to effective multi-location meetings than traditional video conferencing.

In addition to telepresence, desktop video and other video conferencing services, Nortel’s Multimedia Services portfolio includes hosted and managed reservation-less and operator-assisted audio conferencing; multimedia webcasting of live, on-demand and subscription multimedia content; and web collaboration for online meetings, virtual classrooms, training and eLearning.

Available around the world, these application services are designed to unify video and audio conferencing, webcasting and web collaboration, enabling seamless connectivity for employees, suppliers and customers in a collaborative virtual environment.

"Nortel’s Multimedia Services can help enterprises capitalize on an emerging era of hyperconnectivity, where everything that can be connected to the network will be connected," said Dietmar Wendt, president, Global Services, Nortel. "This translates to more efficient and effective communications across the globe, improved productivity and business reach, and significant savings in network operations."

Nortel’s Multimedia Services are part of the Nortel Global Services portfolio, which offers a full range of network application, implementation, management and support services for end-to-end multi-vendor, multi-technology networks.

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