October 14, 2009, 9:46 PM — Cisco's acquisition of Tandberg and its midmarket videoconferencing products has been the subject of much analysis in the past two weeks. But we have to recognize mvision for putting out a release on Monday that capitalizes on the good vibes, even though the London-based company had nothing to do with the deal. Mvision is a managed service provider for Tandberg, and claims to be the number one installer of Tandberg's T3 system in the UK. The release quoted Managing Director Terry Dwyer as saying:
"The Cisco/TANDBERG acquisition will have a positive effect on the video industry at many levels. Firstly, as businesses invest in video itself, there is a resulting demand for supporting networking infrastructure; which is good news for the video channel. Also, a rising volume of endpoint sales will promote the use of Telepresence and the need for managed services such as ours; particularly within the large corporate user organisations that are increasingly common place for us. In the SME arena where proprietary infrastructure facilities aren't as affordable, it creates demand for a managed video or Telepresence service. And, as one of only five TANDBERG global managed service providers in the world, mvision is ideally placed to take advantage of the new opportunities this will create while adding a great deal of value back to the Cisco product line."
This is all fine and dandy, but the last line makes us wonder how the competitive landscape will change among MSPs that may have only worked with one of the two companies in the past. Do they see the expanded marketplace under the unified Cisco umbrella as an opportunity? Will the relationship with Cisco have to be more carefully managed now? Share your thoughts below.
Sources and research: Mvision press release, Tandberg.com, Computerworld.com, Telephony Magazine, MSPmentor.com
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