KENYA, Nairobi, 26 April 2010: Cisco announced today that its Nairobi office has become the first business premises in Kenya to offer Cisco TelePresence. Unveiled in Cisco's Nairobi offices last week, the Cisco TelePresence solution offers a live, face-to-face experience that enables people from different offices and cities around the world to meet virtually using the power of the network. Cisco TelePresence meeting participants can share content, create high-quality video recordings of events, consult with experts, and deliver powerful personalized services, all using the network for an immersive in-person experience.
Highlights / Key Facts:
- Setting up a Cisco TelePresence meeting is as simple as making a phone call, and when participants sit down at the conference table in a Cisco TelePresence room, other participants appear to be sitting across the table, in life size, no matter where they are in the world.
- The Cisco office in Nairobi has been installed with a Cisco TelePresence System 3000, which is ideally suited for large group meetings, creating an environment for up to six people to meet in one location, and to be "virtually" joined by six additional people, for a total of 12 TelePresence meeting participants. The Cisco TelePresence System 3000 is suitable for customer engagements, presentations to groups, supply-chain dealings, press briefings, operational or engineering reviews, negotiations, regular team meetings, and other gatherings.
- The Cisco TelePresence System 3000 integrates three 65-inch plasma screens and a specially designed table that seats six participants on one side of the virtual table. The system, which features cameras, a lighting array, microphones, and speakers, all tuned to optimize the experience, supports life-size images with ultra-high-definition video and spatial audio. A multipoint meeting using Cisco TelePresence System 3000 can support up to 48 locations on a single call.
- For businesses in Africa, Cisco TelePresence will bridge geographical divides, by enabling highly secure virtual meetings with multiple locations inside or outside the corporate firewall. Ultimately, the solution will help to save costs and boost productivity by reducing travel and will facilitate a greener company environment by reducing its carbon footprint.
- The 'real-life' meeting experience provided by TelePresence is delivered through ultra-high-definition video that reveals subtle facial expressions conveying nonverbal reactions. Spatial audio allows the transmission of every nuance of the conversation and enables participants to interact as they would in person.
- As other businesses in Kenya adopt Cisco TelePresence, an expert on investment products based in a Nairobi bank, for example, will be able to have face-to-face private meetings with customers in Kisumu and Mombasa without having to travel a long distance. Similarly, a geological data analyst for an exploration company will be able meet face-to-face with several teams in London, New York and Bangalore in one day and still attend to personal commitments.
Executive Quotes:
Shahab Meshki, regional manager for Cisco East Africa
"In today's climate, when companies are looking at better ways to conduct business efficiently whilst also keeping a firm control on travel costs, Cisco TelePresence offers the perfect solution. Cisco employees in Nairobi are already enjoying the benefits and cost savings that Cisco TelePresence offers, and we aim to also utilize this installation in our Nairobi offices as a pilot to allow our business partners and customers across the region the opportunity to experience the power of Cisco TelePresence. We are already working with the Kenyan government to install Cisco TelePresence systems in government offices, and we are confident that in the very near future many more organizations in Kenya and across East Africa will be deploying the Cisco TelePresence solution."
Carlos Marques, general manager for Cisco Emerging Africa
"The deployment of Cisco TelePresence can now be increased significantly throughout the sub-Saharan African region with the arrival of submarine cables such as Seacom and TEAMS on the east coast, which now offer high bandwidth at attractive prices. Cisco's vision is to be the leading enabler of ICT and broadband acceleration in emerging markets through innovative, scalable, high-value technology offerings and solutions such as Cisco TelePresence."
Links / URLs:
- Emerging Markets RSS Feed: http://newsroom.cisco.com/data/syndication/rss2/EmergingMarkets.xml
- News@Cisco in Africa: http://newsroom.cisco.com/africa
- RSS Feed for Cisco: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/rss.html
- For details about Cisco TelePresence visit:http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns669/networking_solutions_solution_segment_home.html
