Poly

PLEASANTON, Calif. - Feb 06, 2012 : Polycom, Inc., the global leader in standards-based unified communications (UC), today announced that New York Network (NYN), a service of the State University of New York (SUNY), is helping its clients extend the reach of training programs through the use of HD video collaboration enabled by the Polycom® RealPresence™ Platform. NYN is also helping many New York State agencies meet tight budgets and cost-effectively satisfy educational mandates and open government laws.

 

With a tough economy forcing state agencies, schools and companies throughout the Empire State to do more with less, NYN introduced VIEW (Video Interactive Educational Webinar), an online training and distance education service that saves clients time and money by reducing and often eliminating travel required for in-person classes. Leveraging the RealPresence Platform, VIEW offers a cost-effective way to deliver media-rich training to participants 24 hours a day and without the need for special client software.

 

NYN relies on the video content management capabilities in the RealPresence Platform, including the capability to capture lectures and associated content for live webcasts and archive those sessions for on-demand playback; the Polycom® RealPresence™ Broadcast Producer to deliver enterprise-grade, interactive webcasts; and the Polycom® RealPresence™ Media Manager to aggregate rich media content from across the organization into a single, centralized system where it can be proactively categorized, published and expired. The solution includes built-in security, as well as viewership reporting capabilities to track what content individual users have viewed, and then tests participants on the subject matter to assure certification standards have been met. The RealPresence Platform also enables participants in live training events to ask questions via a built-in texting utility.

 

"Given the fiscal times we're facing, Polycom is helping NYN solve what has become a near impossible challenge for some state agencies in New York: to deliver quality training and education programs statewide while under constraints of greatly reduced budgets," said Neil Satterly, executive director of New York Network. "To gain economies of scale, SUNY and state agencies are looking to consolidate their solutions. The RealPresence Platform makes it more affordable to deliver, record, manage, and audit our education and training programs. With Polycom and VIEW, we have the right solution for clients looking to bring training programs to people throughout the state at a fraction of the cost of traditional, in-person classes."

 

NYN sees its VIEW service as a competitive advantage in a market filled with well-promoted but inferior solutions.

 

Helping Organizations Achieve Core Mission Goals Under Tight Budgets

Several New York Network client entities use the VIEW and Polycom solution to record presentations through the platform's web-based interface, including Albany Medical College, the New York State Governor's Office of Employee Relations, the New York State Broadcasters Association, SUNY System Administration and the New York State Commission on National and Community Service. For some clients, VIEW has been the key to making statewide training economically feasible.

 

The efficiencies extend beyond simply watching a recorded lecture. Polycom-powered VIEW confirms when participants complete the training and automatically triggers access to an online test. The system then scores the test, and participants are notified on whether they passed or failed. "The testing feature is a big bonus for our clients," said Satterly. "They can meet the state's expectations without spending time and money on administering and scoring the quiz. At the end of the day, Polycom helps us scale up so we can improve the way our clients deliver training."

 

The RealPresence Platform, which NYN selected and installed with help from Com Tech, Inc., brings flexibility and scalability to VIEW without requiring NYN clients to sacrifice quality or interactivity.

 

"We can customize the look and feel of each program so it reinforces the client's brand and delivers a high-quality, interactive training experience that benefits everyone involved," said Satterly. "Polycom gives us the scalability to accommodate any scenario we will face. VIEW is built to accommodate 5,000 simultaneous users. From a scalability standpoint, we're still in first or second gear."

 

The Polycom RealPresence Platform is the most comprehensive software infrastructure for universal HD video collaboration. The unique open-standards approach of the RealPresence Platform ensures interoperability with hundreds of UC, business, and social networking applications, bridging silos, and truly unifying communications across the enterprise. The platform includes universal video collaboration, video resource management, virtualization management, universal access and security, and video content management.