Poly

PLEASANTON, Calif. - Jun 22, 2011 : Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), a global leader in unified communications (UC), was named the recipient of 2011 Microsoft Unified Communications Innovation Partner of the Year Award, for the company’s leadership in delivering innovations that provide powerful, enterprise-grade UC and visual collaboration solutions for customers. Polycom is being honored for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. Polycom will be officially honored at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) 2011 next month during the Vision keynote and at the WPC 2011 Award Winners Executive Luncheon.

 

"Polycom is honored to receive this award as it demonstrates the momentum of our strong relationship with Microsoft as well as the deep collaboration between our two companies to deliver comprehensive and innovative UC solutions that drive compelling business value for customers," said Andrew Miller, Polycom president and CEO. "Polycom and Microsoft share a passion for delivering easy-to-use UC collaboration solutions that improve business processes, productivity, and efficiency in the workplace. Together with our partners, Polycom is focused on delivering on our vision for UC Everywhere™."

 

Awards were presented in multiple categories, with winners chosen from a set of more than 3,000 entrants worldwide. Polycom was recognized for providing outstanding solutions and services in Microsoft Unified Communications Innovation Partner of the Year. The Unified Communications Innovation Partner of the Year Award honors partners who are building on the extensible Microsoft Unified Communications platform offered by Lync/OCS and Microsoft Exchange, and are delivering innovative solutions that integrate communications within business applications and processes (CEBP). This award recognizes Polycom, who highlighted how their solution around CEBP has had a significant impact on how people communicate and collaborate by enhancing the end-user experience, increasing efficiency, or by extending the existing products with unique add-ons.

 

"Microsoft is pleased to recognize Polycom as Unified Communications Innovation Partner of the Year," said Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Office Division Product Management Group at Microsoft. "Polycom has created tangible value for customers through the development of uniquely integrated audio and video conferencing solutions for the Microsoft Unified Communications platform provided by Lync/OCS and Exchange. Polycom's solutions successfully improve communication capabilities and overall collaboration through a variety of enhancements that impact end-user experience and efficiency, enabling true CEBP applications."

 

The Microsoft Partner Awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the past year. The award builds upon the strategic relationship between Polycom and Microsoft, which was expanded in August 2010 to deliver a complete, standards-based, business class, end-to-end UC solution optimized for Microsoft environments. Polycom and Microsoft's directly integrated solutions have helped companies ranging from fitness clubs to healthcare organizations lower their total cost of ownership, streamline IT management, and improve redundancy protection while providing an enterprise-level quality of experience and a secure solution. Polycom and Microsoft have collaborated on over 100 global events together and have jointly announced a portfolio of HD voice and video solutions that directly interoperate with the Microsoft® Lync™ platform and recently previewed a powerful Polycom group collaboration system purpose-built for Lync, code-named "Rally," during Polycom's June 1 webcast. Polycom plans to make additional enterprise offerings available in the near future. Polycom will be at booth #535 at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2011, July 10-14 in Los Angeles.

 

Polycom works with leading partners across the world, including strategic Polycom® Open Collaboration Network™ members, to deliver tightly integrated unified collaboration solutions that give users easy access to powerful, productivity-enhancing tools while protecting customers' UC environment investments through established standards and open interoperability.