Cisco Closes Tandberg Deal, Steps up Open Telepresence, 3D

Cisco closed its acquisition of video company Tandberg for $3.3 billion, executives said during a conference call Monday, saying the deal marks the launch of Cisco’s open source effort. The company is also looking at 3D opportunities, they said.

The deal would position Cisco to participate well in the video collaboration market, said Cisco Senior Vice President for Emerging Technologies Marthin De Beer. “It’s all about scale,” he said. “Starting today we will offer a bridged environment for interoperable communications between Cisco and Tandberg products, and within the next 12 to 18 months we will develop a complete integrated environment,” said Fredrik Halvorsen, former Tandberg CEO and newly appointed senior vice president of the Telepresence Technology Group at Cisco. To advance telepresence interoperability, Cisco is launching the TIP Open Source project and will publish the TIP source code libraries by July 1. Nine videoconferencing and telepresence vendors have licensed TIP so far.

The deal remains subject to regulatory review in Brazil, which isn’t a condition to closing. The U.S. Justice Department and the European Union approved the deal in late March. Cisco will acquire the remaining outstanding issued shares in Tandberg by a compulsory acquisition of shares.

3D will be one of the technologies that will change the video collaborative experiences, said Halvorsen, regarding the potential of integration of 3D in telepresence. “We have already had some nice looking things in the lab,” he said, adding there will be 3D in the “not too distant future.” The company is looking at technologies in the lab that don’t require 3D glasses or even screens, said De Beer, saying “we are going to get there. … It’s only a matter of time.” HD was an inflection point for video collaboration and 3D will be the next, he said: “But we have to get the experience right."

Cisco’s videoconferencing service is getting a boost in demand from the disruption to business travel across Europe caused by the volcano eruption in Iceland, executives said. “The only evidence is anecdotal, but you will not get a demo room in any of the Cisco facilities,” said Halvorsen. “We have seen a huge spike in usage,” he said.