Contact: Kevin Young
Polycom,
Inc.
+1 925.924.5706
Polycom Addresses
Growing Demand for Telepresence with Enhanced Solutions and Expanded Service
Offerings for Channel Partners
Polycom
expands service options for partners, giving customers greater flexibility for
supporting immersive telepresence through in-house resources or outsourced
services.
PLEASANTON, Calif. – April 28, 2009
– To address growing interest in telepresence
and the varied IT resource capabilities and requirements of customers, Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), the global leader in telepresence, video, and voice communications solutions, today
announced new capabilities for its immersive
telepresence solutions and expanded services delivered through Polycom
certified service partners that give customers greater flexibility to support deployments
with in-house resources or through partial or complete outsourced services.
“Interest in telepresence continues to grow as companies
across industries look to transform their organizations with better, faster,
and smarter collaboration across distances,” said Geno Alissi, senior vice
president and general manager of Polycom Service Division. “Telepresence
deployments are reaching small and large organizations alike, each of which has
unique infrastructure and IT resource capabilities and requirements. By
providing greater flexibility and choice through our expanded service options
and new self-service capabilities in our systems, Polycom and its certified
telepresence partners can address the specific needs of a broader range of
customers.”
For customers wanting to outsource all or part of the
management of their immersive telepresence solutions, Polycom service partners
can now offer a new Assisted Operations Service (AOS) in addition to existing
fully managed Video Network Operations Center (VNOC) service that manages all
aspects of a customer’s immersive telepresence deployment. With AOS, the customer’s in-house IT or
video operations team manages immersive telepresence scheduling, conference
management, and reporting. An external certified Polycom service provider
partner provides 24x7 remote system monitoring and streamlined fault management
to maximize solution availability.
To complement the AOS service and also address customers
with experienced in-house IT resources that want to manage all aspects of their
immersive telepresence deployments, Polycom introduced a new capability for its
industry-leading Polycom
RealPresence™ Experience (RPX™) and Polycom
Telepresence Experience™ (TPX™) immersive
telepresence solutions called Single
Touch Multipoint, which allows users to easily initiate calls among
multiple locations. With this new capability, users simply touch a single button
on the RPX and TPX touch-screen executive control panel to join a meeting and
the system connects the call and determines how sites appear based on automatic,
optimized layout views or administrator-configured custom layouts. This feature
reduces the need for assistance in initiating telepresence calls that include
multiple sites and calls with different types of telepresence and video
conferencing systems.
“Polycom is giving customers choice and flexibility in
terms of how they utilize telepresence throughout their organization,” said
Andrew W. Davis, Senior Analyst and Founding Partner, Wainhouse
Research. “The reality is that no single approach is going to meet the needs of
all customers and Polycom is addressing that issue by allowing its
partners to deliver telepresence as a fully managed service, a partially
managed service to complement customer in-house IT capabilities, or as a
customer-managed solution. Combined with the breadth of its solution portfolio
and significant installed base, Polycom is well-positioned in the telepresence
market.”
Polycom Global Services
delivers a comprehensive
range of services through a worldwide network of partners to support
telepresence and broader visual communication deployments. Services range from assessment, planning, design,
implementation and management of telepresence and visual communication networks, applications and
operations, to support, maintenance and training.
“Polycom service partners have unparalleled experience
and expertise in delivering best-in-class video networks,” added Alissi. “Our global partners are
instrumental in helping best-in-class companies around the world derive maximum value and the best experience from their
visual communication investments.”
Polycom offers the broadest portfolio
of telepresence solutions that empowers people to work together more
effectively and productively across distances. Polycom telepresence solutions
can support virtually any application, space and budget requirement with fully
interoperable, standards-based solutions from personal telepresence at the
desktop; room telepresence for conference rooms; specialized solutions for
vertical applications and custom rooms; and immersive telepresence solutions
that make people feel like they are in the same room as people in other
locations. Polycom is the leading provider of telepresence solutions with
approximately 50,000 systems shipped to thousands of customers worldwide, and
more than 600 patents related to voice, video and telepresence technologies.
Pricing and Availability
The
Polycom AOS service is now available worldwide through Polycom certified
telepresence service partners with suggested pricing ranging from
US$1,000-$1,250 per month based on the Polycom RPX or TPX system (annual
agreement required). The new Single Touch Multipoint software is now available
worldwide at no additional cost for Polycom RPX and TPX customers with a
current maintenance agreement. The Single Touch Multipoint software requires a
PC and an RMX 2000 conference platform (Version 4.0 with Telepresence Option)
on the network. Polycom Global
Services also offers an implementation service for Single Touch Multipoint,
which includes installation, control system customization and project
management.
Additional Information:
Polycom Telepresence Solutions
http://www.polycom.com/telepresence
Polycom Global Services
http://www.polycom.com/services/index.html
About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) is
the global leader in telepresence, video, and voice solutions and a
visionary in communications that empower people to connect and collaborate
everywhere. Please visit www.polycom.com for more information.
© 2009 Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved. POLYCOM®, the Polycom
“Triangles” logo and the names and marks associated with Polycom’s products are
trademarks and/or service marks of Polycom, Inc. and are registered and/or
common law marks in the
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