Interoute Communications has added video conferencing and telepresence services to its portfolio with the acquisition of Visual Conference Group (VCG). Financial details were not disclosed.
Visual Conference Group, founded in Sweden in 2002, specialises in managed telepresence services and is particularly strong throughout Scandinavia. It enables companies to use high-definition Video Conference and telepresence meetings. VCG will sit within Interoute’s Unified ICT portfolio.
Interoute reckons the managed aspect of VCG’s services is key; it says some companies may have been deterred from using video conferencing because of the difficulties presented by self-managing the service.
Gareth Williams, Interoute CEO said the deal will help his firm move more of its products to the cloud. "The addition of a high quality managed video conferencing service is a very exciting addition to our portfolio, as it supports our ongoing strategy to make more and more enterprise services available from within the cloud," he said.
"We are at the tipping point in the adoption of video conferencing, as enterprises are looking for ways to improve communication, speed up decision making, reduce travel costs and CO2 emissions," added VCG’s CEO Patrik Christiansen.
"Now that telepresence is entering the mainstream adoption phase, it made sense for us accelerate the expansion of our services across Europe," Christiansen continued. "Joining forces with Interoute was a perfect fit for our video conferencing services, as its network scale and expertise provide us with the required high capacity, low latency to ensure a high quality high definition experience across Europe."
The acquisition will Interoute in to competition with the likes of Cisco, LifeSize (recently acquired by Logitech) and Polycom.
