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Polycom and Microsoft Lync Help Customers Cut Costs, Enhance Productivity and Improve the Bottom Line
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011

LA Fitness works out $500,000 in annual cost savings and improved customer service

Enterprise Connect ORLANDO, Fla., PLEASANTON, Calif., and REDMOND, Wash. - Feb 28, 2011 : Polycom, Inc., a global leader in unified communications (UC), and Microsoft Corp. continue to help change the way organizations communicate. Together they are enabling leading companies to be present, virtually anytime and anywhere, while reaping substantial cost, efficiency and productivity advantages from integrated UC solutions combining Microsoft Lync and Polycom.
 
Joint customer LA Fitness is already benefiting from the strategic alliance between Microsoft and Polycom.
 
“Microsoft and Polycom are committed to a roadmap that delivers interoperable UC solutions to help transform enterprise communications, and they are delivering,” said Rich Costello, senior research analyst, IDC. “Since its public launch in November 2010, Lync continues to gain significant traction with end users. It's very promising for the industry when we see customers like LA Fitness improve productivity, enhance team collaboration and save money by deploying these flexible, high-quality, multi-vendor UC solutions.”
 
Helping Customers Lower Expenses, Enhance Productivity and Improve the Bottom Line
North America sports club network LA Fitness implemented Microsoft and Polycom UC solutions as its primary voice platform, and found it provides better quality, reliability and fault-tolerance than its previous mix of traditional private branch exchange (PBX) telephony systems and an open-source voice over IP (VoIP) solution. Implementing the Microsoft and Polycom UC solutions is also saving LA Fitness over $500,000 annually and improved customer service.
 
“The Microsoft and Polycom UC solutions allowed us to replace our existing telephone system with a more reliable, fuller featured solution, with the added benefit of truly unified communications,” said George Bedar, chief information officer for LA Fitness. “Essentially, we solved all of our telecommunication problems, with real-time instant messaging, presence, conferencing and integration with our other line of business applications. We also federated some of these applications with our partners and vendors, enabling even broader team collaboration and greater efficiencies. We look forward to extending our UC capabilities to video and other forms of enhanced collaboration.”
 
Microsoft and Polycom Extending the Promise of UC Virtually Anytime, Anywhere
Unlike others, the combination of Microsoft and Polycom solutions deliver a complete, high-definition, interoperable and standards based end-to-end UC solution for voice, video, conferencing, and collaboration. Polycom and Microsoft continue to deliver a shared vision for UC. Microsoft collaborates with Polycom's R&D to help enhance support for  Lync features on Polycom's entire line of Microsoft-optimized UC solutions, including Polycom telepresence solutions that require up to 50 percent less bandwidth than other systems; desktop and conference phones and UC devices featuring unrivalled HDVoice™ clarity; and a scalable and resilient supporting infrastructure, the Polycom UC Intelligent Core, that allows users to connect anytime, anywhere using different devices.
 
The Polycom video solutions also incorporate Microsoft's real-time video (RTV) codec, enabling communications throughout enterprises as well as B2B environments and across multiple collaboration tools. With this natively integrated solution, companies can lower their total cost of ownership, streamline IT management, and improve redundancy protection. Further, Polycom will innovate by offering Lync voice and video solutions that support CCCP (Centralized Conference Control Protocol), which will allow the Polycom endpoints to be easily controlled from Lync, letting users take full advantage of the rich user interface Microsoft provides and enabling users to connect anytime, anywhere.
 
Polycom and Microsoft will be exhibiting at Enterprise Connect Orlando, and will highlight their UC solutions. Please visit Polycom in booth no. 671 and Microsoft in booth no. 808.
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Douglas Fearing- Co-Founder / President

A graduate of DeVry Institute of Technology, Doug has been in the Technology industry since 1976 and actively oversees Fearing’s daily operations. Along with his wife, Lois, and three others, Doug started Fearing’s in a 600 square-foot facility in Portage, Wisconsin. In the 25 years since, the company has grown to over 30 employees with offices in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Doug likes to say he’s a “TV Technician with a dream� going back to his history with the family’s original business-Fearing’s TV and Appliance.

Doug values time with family, watersports, hiking, snowshoeing and skiing. In addition to being a devoted member of his church, Doug serves as Board President for Kinship Mentoring of Columbia County, Board member of Schools for Haiti and Scripture Chair of the Gideons-Portage camp.

Lois Fearing- Co-Founder/Accounting, Human Resources

A graduate of MATC, Lois oversees Fearing’s daily book keeping along with various HR responsibilities.

Along with Doug, Lois is deeply connected to community outreach, serving as a Board member and Fundraising Committee Chairperson for Kinship Mentoring of Columbia County. She also serves on the Schools for Haiti Fundraising committee. In addition, Lois’ ongoing passion and commitment to provide care for the elderly comes from her 10-year history of working in a Reedsburg, Wisconsin Nursing home.

Lois enjoys singing, hiking, sunny days on the pontoon, and spending time with her 4 grandchildren.

Ehren Tresner-VP of Technology and Innovation

Ehren drives Fearing’s technology by continually seeking out trends to enhance capabilities while supporting Sales, Engineering and Installation teams. Throughout his years with Fearing’s, Ehren’s talent and vision have joined forces to create a wide variety of projects and strategic solutions that exceed expectation.

Ehren loves music, family time, movies, nature, sustainability efforts and electric vehicles.

Ben Voeck-Director of Commercial AV

With 10 years with Fearing’s and over twice that long in the industry, Ben continues to lead, coordinate, and develop the Commercial AV team.

By consistently delivering an outstanding experience and outcome, Ben contributes to the Fearing’s legacy of long-lasting partnerships that truly make a difference. Whatever the Commercial AV need may be, Ben and team deliver at the highest level.

Ben is an avid fisherman and photographer. He enjoys coaching his sons and other youth.

Chris Matson-Senior VP of Sales

Chris has been with Fearing’s for 20 years and in the industry for over 2 decades. As a Certified leader in Sales Acceleration and trained in EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating Systems), Chris successfully utilizes his skills to lead the Fearing’s Salesforce. Chris and team are motivated and driven to develop new client partnerships while continuing to reinforce loyal long-term relationships with ongoing Service excellence.

Married for 19 years with 3 children, Chris enjoys skiing, hiking, fishing, boating, hunting, camping and golf. He’s also been actively involved as a Youth Football and Softball coach for his family and others.