Nine major telcos, including Telstra, have joined forces to form the Global Meeting Alliance, dedicated to facilitating video communications between customers on their respective networks.

Polycom has unveiled a strategy to enable service providers to offer cloud-delivered, video-as-a-service (VaaS) to their customers.

AARNet has joined the Open Visual Communications Consortium (OVCC) - the body created by Polycom last June to develop telepresence interoperability across the networks of different service providers.

The Australian Telehealth Network (ATN) has launched its video consultation services for GPs, specialists and aged care providers in partnership with BCS Global and Vidyo.

Unified communications vendor, Polycom has joined forces with the global Sabre Travel Network, to develop what the two companies claim will be the world’s first global reservation system for booking and scheduling public and corporate-owned HD video conferencing and telepresence rooms.

Australia's videoconferencing market is getting hotter with Japanese giant Sony making a serious attempt to break into it via new distribution arrangements with unified communications systems distributor 24/7 Distribution.

Huawei is ramping up its assault on the Australian telepresence market with the launch of new multi screen room systems that, it claims, can achieve total costs of ownership that are up to 50 percent those of its competitors.

Increasing adoption by businesses of enterprise-grade telepresence has created a boom market for video conferencing, with global spending expected to hit $1.1 billion by 2016 on the back of compound annual growth of 19.5 percent.

Today telepresence is the acme of collaboration at a distance, but it still falls well short of the interaction that takes place when people are together. Bell Labs is looking at how to create truly 'immersive meetings'.

The Federal Government has detailed the productivity gains it estimates have been achieved from the 36 location telepresence system installed in 2009 under what was initially a $13.8m contract awarded to Telstra and Cisco.