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TelePresence to slash business travel costs

REASSURING: EDI Holdings chairman Duma Nkosi says although there will be a change in employment conditions, no jobs will be lost. 06/03/2009. © The Times. Marianne Schwankhart.
REASSURING: EDI Holdings chairman Duma Nkosi says although there will be a change in employment conditions, no jobs will be lost. 06/03/2009. © The Times. Marianne Schwankhart.

Zweli Mokgata

Zweli Mokgata

Travel allowances are one of the first things to get the chop when companies feel the strangling of the economic downturn, but technology promises to ease the loss of personal touch.

Nothing beats face to face communication when making important decisions.

This was according to Olivier Campenon, British Telecoms president of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, who was in the country recently on a fact-finding mission and to increase the company's presence in South Africa.

He said the liberalisation of the telecommunication industry would mean an influx of new applications that would transform the way people did business.

At the top of the list was Tele-Presence, a conferencing solution that can best be described as video-conferencing on steroids. "We have 20 rooms globally and we plan to build one in South Africa some time during the year," Campenon said.

A Tele-Presence room is a state-of-the-art meeting room where people meet face to face while on opposite sides of the world. The senses are fooled by a surround sound system, high definition wide screens and multiple microphones that replicate the direction of sound in real time.

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