Touchline Video brings ZTE to UK

VAD adds new VC vendor to fill LifeSized hole

Touchline Video has followed up its July axing by vendor LifeSize by sealing a deal with ZTE, a new entrant to the UK market.

Barry Cross, managing director of Touchline Video, said ZTE went beyond videoconferencing to supply entire communications systems, from end to end.

"This capability is completely new to the UK market," he claimed, "Combined with the high quality of ZTE's products, it will make the UK market sit up and take notice. We believe that ZTE will have a massive impact on the global videoconferencing market."

Touchline's Cross was not available for interview before deadline but alleged in a statement announcing its ZTE agreement that global videoconferencing is due for a "massive shake-up".

China-based ZTE, via Touchline, is offering its telepresence, HD videoconferencing, video surveillance, digital home equipment and IPTV solutions to the UK market for the first time. Its videoconferencing system (VCS) has been sold to 27 countries and regions so far, and has 35 industry customers.

Jim Jing Hui, UK managing director of ZTE, said it offered commercial applications of IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) teleconferencing.

"The VCS system supports session initiation protocol (SIP), IMS network multimedia integrated services, and a wide range of terminals including VoIP phones, 3G video mobile phones, IM soft terminals and videophones," he said. "We invest more than 10 per cent of our annual sales revenue into R&D."

As previously reported on ChannelWeb, videoconferencing vendor LifeSize ditched Touchline Video and Medium from its distribution line-up in July, in favour of Zycko, Tempura Communications and new signing Avnet.

LifeSize indicated then that its strategy was to strengthen its foothold in sales of Microsoft-compatible systems. But Touchline's Cross told ChannelWeb at the time that he felt the vendor had not valued the UK audiovisual channel.