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Welcome to the latest addition of TMCnet’s Telepresence (News - Alert) Week in Review where we bring you the latest video communications news headlines .

This week, Carl Zeiss Optics announced it formed a partnership with AT&T (News - Alert) for telepresence.

The partnership will allow Carl Zeiss’ employees at their headquarters in Jena and Oberkochen, Germany to connect with their other sites in China and the United States.

Reportedly, this announcement is part of a bigger five year, $20 million deal between Carl Zeiss and AT&T.

Company officials with Carl Zeiss said the move is an attempt to help reduce overhead costs while improving customer contact.

Another well known company in the industry, Polycom (News - Alert) also announced this week its new RealPresence Platform – an infrastructure for universal video collaboration.

Company officials introduced the new offering while presenting their keynote address at ITEXPO (News - Alert) West 2011 in Austin, Texas.

With the open-standards based offering, the new platform can integrate with hundreds of unified communications and social networking applications and delivers secure collaboration, reliability and scalability needed by enterprise, SMB and consumer users.

TMC’s (News - Alert) Juliana Kenny, also reporting from ITEXPO West 2011 this week, said a session moderated by Doug Mohney, “Why Video is a Must for Enterprise Communications,” compared reasons for video in the enterprise – covering topics from carrier reluctance to a lagging economy and other challenges.

Find out what panelist had to say HERE.

Finally, a video-related story that pulled at my heart strings this week– the newest Internet video sensation is an elderly couple who were unknowingly recorded as they attempt to set up the webcam on their new laptop. The video captures the couple in their most natural state and is a testament to the expanding use of video technologies from the youngest, most advanced users to novice, senior users. Check out the video HERE.

That’s all for this week, be sure to check back with TMCnet for all the latest in Telepresence news as it happens. Until next week…