From Polycom® CX7000 – the first room video collaboration solution custom-built for full integration with Microsoft Lync – to multi-purpose phones, expanded integration and interoperability with Lync helps create seamless UC experiences for employees, partners, and customers
PLEASANTON, Calif. - Dec 05, 2011 : Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), the global leader in standards-based unified communications (UC), today announced that it has expanded interoperability with Microsoft® Lync™ to additional Polycom SIP-based wired and wireless voice products. Polycom also announced the availability to order the Polycom® CX7000, the first room video collaboration solution custom-built for full integration with Microsoft® Lync™, the UC platform that unites voice communications, IM, and audio, video, and Web conferencing. The Polycom CX7000 is the first video collaboration solution to be qualified by Microsoft as "optimized for Microsoft® Lync™." In addition, Polycom is testing Polycom® RealPresence™ Immersive room systems for Microsoft® Lync™ interoperability. The announcements made today offer customers a broad set of choices – more than 40 systems – to enhance their Microsoft® Lync™ environments to make collaborating by video, voice, or content-sharing easier, from the board room to the desktop or on-the-go. On Tuesday, December 6, Polycom will co-host a webinar with Microsoft to discuss collaboration trends in the enterprise and show how Sprint has made their business more productive and effective with UC solutions from Polycom and Microsoft working together.
"We are excited to expand our strategic relationship with Microsoft by extending our broad solution portfolio with interoperability for Microsoft® Lync™. Polycom's strategic relationship with Microsoft enables customers across the globe to multiply the return on solution investments they have in place today and will need in the future," said Sue Hayden, executive vice president, Strategic Alliances, Polycom. "By directly interoperating with Microsoft® Lync™ across a comprehensive range of HD video and voice solutions, Polycom delivers a true UC experience that enables users to be much more productive and collaborative."
Connecting Microsoft and Polycom solutions for IM/presence, web conferencing, video, voice, content-sharing, and other UC applications into an interoperable environment enables users to quickly find each other, launch video and voice calls easily and intuitively within Microsoft® Lync™, and share content via Microsoft® Lync™ to Polycom HD video systems.
"By using Polycom and Microsoft solutions, we were able to leverage our core networking solutions (GMPLS, domestic & international SIP trunking, and wireless integration) to improve interaction with colleagues, customers, and partners while improving annual operating expenses," said Joe Hamblin, manager, Unified Communications/ Collaboration, Sprint.
Polycom CX7000
The Polycom® CX7000 unified group video collaboration system – the latest addition to the company's groundbreaking Polycom CX line – takes the Microsoft® Lync™ experience customers are familiar with on their PCs and recreates it in the conference room to provide a higher level of business collaboration and productivity with enhanced simplicity for end users. The solution offers all of the Microsoft® Lync™ features customers want (presence, IM, online meetings, content collaboration) coupled with Polycom's industry-leading room video collaboration solutions in a single plug-and-play system. With especially tight integration between the Polycom and Microsoft solutions, customers get an intuitive interface, a simplified UC experience, and a seamless HD video experience. Users are able to click on a calendar event to instantaneously join meetings and, with simple conference leader controls, users can easily see presence and drag-and-drop participants into the call for more productive and efficient meetings.
"The Polycom CX7000 delivers a competitive advantage for us, helping to drive company-wide gains in productivity, efficiency, and innovation," said JJ Brantingham, partner and CIO at Sebesta Blomberg & Associates, a national leader in providing full-service consulting and engineering services, and a Polycom CX7000 beta customer. "The Polycom CX7000 solution simplifies the UC experience and offers seamless HD video. The group document collaboration feature allows multiple people on the team to make edits to a single, shared document while on video, regardless of which office they are in, ensuring we are all literally on the same page."
Polycom's extended interoperability with Microsoft® Lync™ spans four key areas1:
- Standards-based Polycom wireless telephones. Polycom® KIRK® Wireless DECT and Polycom® SpectraLink® Wi-Fi solutions are the first wireless phones to display and share call and directory information via Microsoft® Lync™. Polycom SpectraLink WiFi also features presence and instant message information. Offering the first on-premises wireless solution for Microsoft® Lync™ in healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and hospitality, Polycom wireless phones are mission critical to improve productivity and speed up workflows, from the emergency room to the factory floor.
- Standards-based Polycom desktop and conference phones. Select Polycom® SoundPoint® IP desktop, Polycom® SoundStation® IP conference, and Polycom® VVX® business media phones can now deliver rich, clear, HD voice and seamless functionality with Microsoft® Lync™, so customers of Polycom voice devices can seamlessly upgrade to get more value out of their existing investment.
- Polycom RealPresence Immersive. Polycom is currently testing the first immersive video solution for direct connection to a Microsoft® Lync™ server to offer presence-based dialing and HD video in Microsoft® Lync™ calls. With this release, Microsoft® Lync™ users can find Polycom® RealPresence™ Experience (RPX™) and Polycom® Open Telepresence Experience™ (OTX™) immersive systems, check their availability, and then make a direct video call.
- Enhanced support for video deployments. Polycom is also testing support for the bandwidth management policies of the Microsoft® Lync™ interoperable communications solution across all Polycom video solutions, as well as the Polycom® RealPresence™ Platform, the most comprehensive software infrastructure for universal video collaboration. By supporting Microsoft® Lync™ bandwidth management policies across an entire spectrum of video solutions, Polycom enables network administrators to confidently design and deploy Microsoft® Lync™ video networks and Polycom video solutions knowing that they can be managed under a single policy to avoid oversubscription or call degradation and help ensure critical applications remain unaffected. This means a better overall experience for users and administrators alike, leading to wider adoption of efficient, cost-saving video collaboration to help connect people in additional ways, virtually anytime, anywhere.
"Polycom's innovative solutions – such as the CX7000, custom-built for full integration with Microsoft® Lync™ – are an ideal complement to Microsoft® Lync™ environments and help to
