Huawei, a leading ICT solutions provider, has warned that not taking advantage of technologies such as video-conferencing is costing Middle East and Africa (MEA) businesses money and blunting their international edge.

According to an IDC study, only 11 per cent of GCC companies use video-conferencing and telepresence, despite the clear cost savings to be gained.

With the launch of Telepresence 2.0, Huawei's Enterprise Business hopes to close this gap in the market and help the region's businesses boost productivity, said a senior official.

Although other markets are making good use of telepresence technology, it is still in its early stages in the MEA region, for a variety of reasons identified by IDC in its October 2011 survey, from lack of readiness by users to adopt new technologies to apprehension about high costs and lack of local language interfaces provided by vendors.

'Businesses point to many very valid barriers to telepresence adoption and I hope to show our visitors at Gitex how we can help overcome these barriers,' said Huawei Enterprise Middle East president Dr Liu Qi.

'Telepresence 2.0 brings life-size, panoramic images of meeting participants so you feel as if you're sitting in the same room as your colleagues and making real eye contact with them.

'You don't have to leave the office, so you save on travel costs and it feels like a natural, real-life business meeting experience.

'Business in the Middle East is booming, it's international and we see world-class innovation at the SME level as well as within multinationals.

'Telepresence is a perfect way for all businesses in the region to take their growth to the next level because it means there are no more barriers to communicating with their colleagues and customers anywhere in the world,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service