IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced new services to help companies around the world improve global communications, reduce their carbon footprint and save costs on travel expenses.

Video communications delivers a new dimension to collaboration by bridging the barriers of geography, culture and location. For the first time, IBM is delivering a managed service to make it easy to implement and operate a video communications solution enabling smarter collaboration between employees, customer and partners around the world. The new IBM Converged Communications Services - Managed Telepresence service includes design, implementation, concierge and help desk, integration with client calendaring application, remote operations, and maintenance and support. IBM Global Financing will also offer flexible billing and payment options for this solution.

Telepresence centers feature high-definition visual communications tools that range from personal units to life-size screens that sprawl the length of the room, with duplex and directional sound. The technology allows clients to hold virtual meetings with multiple locations at one time and provide them with both the security and freedom to organize meetings with external parties outside of the corporate firewall. IBM will provide telecommunications for this service by leveraging its partnerships with telecommunications providers worldwide, and technology for this service using Cisco's TelePresence technology.

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, a pharmaceutical company in Japan, wanted a solution to improve communication across its various offices in worldwide. Working with IBM, Takeda is benefitting from the newly deployed video communications solution. The video communications solution IBM delivered enables Takeda to have more frequent and fluent communication with its various global subsidiaries, thereby further enhancing the quality and speed of its decision-making, while at the same time allowing for savings in time and money related to business travel.

At IBM there are video communications solutions available throughout the world to facilitate global communications functions including, support for business management, products and services development, education and audits. Currently, there are over 30 different clients who IBM can connect with through a business-to-business connection, and scheduling is as simple as adding the rooms to a LotusNotes meeting invitation.

"With this new managed service and the largest trained and fully accredited implementation team, IBM is a global leader in delivering Cisco TelePresence solutions worldwide," said Marisa Viveros, vice president of Converged Communications Services of Global Technology Services at IBM. "The solution delivers invaluable benefits to clients, especially given IBM's worldwide delivery and support capability that meets the needs of our global customers who are looking for more than a "one size fits all" solution.

This service will be available November 16, 2009 in the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe and Japan, and will support customer endpoints worldwide.