When larger enterprises take certain actions, people take notice, and Cisco’s 2009 shopping spree is no different. But more than making headlines, the company’s myriad acquisitions are forecasting a trend of large telecom vendors collaborating with videoconferencing companies. We’ve discussed the surge in videoconferencing before, and it should be noted that in addition to Cisco’s acquisition of Tandberg (and others) and Logitech’s of LifeSize Communications, Polycom and the BT Group have partnered to produce unified conferencing solutions for both enterprise and the public sector.

Since its initial offering, Cisco upped their bid for Tandberg to $3.4 billion, and it is the willingness of these acquiring companies to pay such a sum that intimates a future demand for videoconferencing. It’s expected to become a factor in everyday business use, especially now that companies are beginning to see both the monetary, temporal, and environmental benefits of green solutions like web conferencing.

There are also emerging companies like CoroWare, which offers affordable videoconferencing with hig-definition video, and has added the coveted CoroCall to its product line. Many video and web conferencing solutions require users to be in front of a computer to participate, but CoroCall now provides them with the ability to join in from analog telephones. An added benefit: the solution streamlines audio and video conferencing in one affordable solution.

We tend to associate universal telepresence with the futuristic technologies like flying cars and teleportation, but with all the movement in that telepresence industry, the ubiquitous use of videoconferencing doesn’t seem so far away.