Last week Telanetix made the acquisition of AccessLine Communcations to expand their services profile in new directions. Tom Szabo, CEO of Telanetix, held a conference call explaining the firm's rationale in making the acquisition. You can listen to the Telanetix Q2 07 conference call here. Click through to read an article about the purchase.

From Telecommunications Online
by Jim Barthold

The ability to make telepresence part of an IP pitch to small- medium business (SMB) customers was a leading reason why Telanetix is putting up $34.9 million in cash and stock to acquire AccessLine Communications. "At the end of the day, there are customers who have needs. All of them have a voice need and a subset of them have a video need," said Doug Johnson, CEO of AccessLine Communications, which has over 100,000 IP customers.

"There's a compelling argument that voice is an application and so is video." Telanetix has developed a high-end video conferencing system that it has winnowed down to meet the needs of SMBs for about $1,000 a month. "If you were to talk to our competition in the telepresence space, they'd tell you there's no market because the price point can't be met," said Rick Ono, president-COO of Telanetix.

via [Telecommunications Online]