polycomWhether you want to improve communications, increase productivity, or enhance your corporate culture, nothing is as effective as enabling feature-rich collaboration and conferencing experiences, multinational corporation Polycom explains.

“Video, voice and content collaboration are evolving rapidly— moving from the conference room to teleworkers, mobile workers, and knowledge workers—both inside and outside your organization. And with the rise of the virtualized datacenter, it is easier than ever to dynamically spin-up or spin-down video services based on bursts in demand, and to effectively measure the positive impact of these services across the organization”, the expert company stated.

Retrospect

Polycom entered the video conferencing market in 1998 when introducing the ViewStation product line, which included models with embedded multipoint capabilities, content sharing capabilities, and support for the emerging H.323 IP network protocol. It was followed in 2000 by a personal desktop video conferencing appliance called ViaVideo, essentially a web cam with inboard processing capabilities, to offset the compute limitations of most desktop and laptop computers at the time. Six years later, the company introduced its first high definition video conferencing system and announced soon thereafter the Polycom RealPresence Experience (RPX), steadily expanding its telepresence and HD video product lines.

In 2008, Polycom delivered the Polycom Converged Management Application (CMA), a video network and system management application for provisioning and managing video networks, and later that launched year the Distributed Media Application (DMA) 7000, a network-based application that manages and distributes multipoint video calls within an enterprise network environment. In 2010, Polycom introduced then a new immersive telepresence solution, the Polycom Open Telepresence Experience (OTX 300), providing collaboration including 1080p, using half the bandwidth of other comparable systems.

Just last year Polycom introduced RealPresence One, probably the industry’s most reliable, interoperable, and scalable solution to video-enable your organization. It contains intelligent infrastructure, the Polycom RealPresence Platform, that makes video collaboration always available to everyone across any network, protocol, application or device—delivered as software— and optimized for deployment in your virtualized datacenter. RealPresence One is a holistic offering that fits the needs of any organization. Desktop, mobile, and browser-based video applications are included, and it’s easy to scale as demand and usage grow. Professional services that include implementation, benchmarking, and analytics will expedite rollout and ensure user adoption.

Just recently

A week ago, Polycom and Microsoft announced their expanded relationship through which Polycom plans to deliver a new series of video collaboration solutions purpose-built for Skype for Business, called Polycom RoundTable.

The first device in this new offering is the Polycom RoundTable 100, an affordable and easy-to-use video solution for huddle rooms that will allow small to midsized businesses (SMB) and teams with Skype for Business and Microsoft Lync 2013 to enjoy rich collaboration experiences, including voice, video and content collaboration, simply by logging into their Skype for Business account. Its set-up will take just minutes and it will not require corporate domains or on-premises infrastructure, making it easy to use without assistance from IT.

“Together, Microsoft and Polycom have a joint vision to deliver collaboration experiences that help our customers defy distance. We are now expanding our solutions to allow SMBs, as well as large enterprises, to reap the benefits of video collaboration,” said Peter Leav, Polycom President and CEO. “Our partnership with Microsoft has never been stronger, and over the years, it has fortified a market demand for collaboration experiences that help make our customers successful.”

Polycom and Microsoft have worked in tandem for more than a decade to make collaboration easier and more intuitive. Since Microsoft’s entry into unified communications, Polycom has developed the broadest portfolio of voice, video and content collaboration solutions that integrate with and are qualified by Microsoft. RoundTable solutions will add to Polycom’s portfolio of more than 40 existing solutions that integrate with Lync and Skype for Business.

“Collaboration is the cornerstone of productivity, and people need tools that work the way they do—across locations and devices,” said Zig Serafin, corporate vice president, Skype Business Services Group, Microsoft. “Throughout our long-standing partnership with Polycom, we’ve shared a goal of delivering collaboration experiences that transform the way people work. The RoundTable 100 serves as another important step in helping businesses of all sizes to realize that goal.”

The Polycom RoundTable 100 for Skype for Business is planned to be offered by mid-2015.

By MediaBUZZ