By Charlene O'Hanlon

A newcomer to the conferencing space, Vu TelePresence has set its sights on the SMB market and is working to build a channel following.

The company, which has its headquarters in Pittsburgh, has developed its own protocol that utilizes lower bandwidth to provide high-quality videoconferencing in a system suitable for smaller crowds such as client meetings and employee conferences.

On some levels videoconferencing is still a luxury for companies,” said Devita Saraf, Vu TelePresence CEO. We have created a product for the midmarket, where these smaller companies can get the same quality as the larger systems that is more affordable and easy to set up.”

The company has two flavors of its solution the Vu TelePresence Pro, designed to connect with up to five locations; and the Vu TelePresence Premier, built for larger audience settings such as boardrooms or classrooms.

Both systems feature HD quality, multi-party conferencing desktop screen-sharing and up to 3,000 hours of video recording. Each system comes with a master control unit, pan-tilt zoom camera, speakers and a microphone.

Saraf said Vu is now in the process of signing on channel partners in the midmarket what Vu considers to be the sweet spot for its solution.

We are reaching out and signing up channel partners across the country, specifically those serving the SME segment,” she said.

Vu also offers a Telepresence-as-a-Service program, as well as the Vu TelePoint program, which enables channel partners to act as conference point locations for their customers and drive monthly recurring revenues.

We believe we have created a product offering that addresses many of the concerns of the midmarket in terms of cost and quality,” Saraf said.