Poly

PLEASANTON, Calif. - Jan 31, 2011 : At Lotusphere 2011, Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), a global leader in unified communications (UC), today announced that it has been awarded the IBM® Lotus Award in the Enhancing Business Value through UC2™ Solutions category for the 17th annual IBM Lotus Awards. This award recognizes the solution that most effectively leverages IBM Lotus Sametime services and open architecture to improve a strategic business process. Polycom received the award for its innovative solution Polycom® Unified Collaboration for Lotus Sametime, which it is demonstrating this week at the Lotusphere 2011 conference in Orlando, Fla. (booth no. 509/510).

 

"Our integrated solution with IBM is resonating in the market with both channel partners and customers," said Garry Reichert, Polycom vice president of global strategic alliances. "Polycom is honored to receive the IBM Lotus Award for the UC category. Unified communications and collaboration is about making it easy for people to find, connect and collaborate with others. Polycom's integration with the IBM UC2 environment puts our powerful, productivity enhancing video collaboration tools just one click away within the Lotus applications millions of people use every day."

 

Extending Real-Time Collaboration Capabilities of IBM Lotus Sametime

Polycom Unified Collaboration for Lotus Sametime extends the real-time collaboration capabilities of Lotus Sametime by enabling users to participate in high-definition (HD) video and voice conferences directly from their Lotus Sametime Connect client. A server-side plug-in integrates the capabilities elegantly into the familiar presence-enabled user interface, allowing people to easily connect face to face with colleagues, partners and customers scattered across different regions to share information and resolve issues quickly, resulting in higher productivity and lower costs through reduced travel.

 

Leveraging Existing Systems and Open Standards for Greater ROI

The solution combines the leading HD performance of Polycom personal and room telepresence solutions and the flexibility and scalability of Polycom's UC Intelligent Core infrastructure and currently supports Lotus Sametime release 8.5.1. By allowing customers to leverage existing Lotus Sametime and Polycom investments and by supporting open standards and native interoperability with millions of standards-based telepresence and video conferencing systems in use today, The Polycom Unified Collaboration for Lotus Sametime offers customers greater flexibility and investment protection and helps drive greater return on investment (ROI).

 

Streamlining Collaboration for Organizations Around the Globe

Momentum for the integrated solution is building with several large customers already in early stages of deployments. For example, a large financial services institution selected Polycom Unified Collaboration for Lotus Sametime to improve collaboration and training among its geographically dispersed locations and employees, to reduce costs by reducing travel expenses, and, ultimately, to better serve its customers. Similarly, a leading pharmaceutical company that uses Polycom visual communications broadly today is deploying Polycom Unified Collaboration for Lotus Sametime to drive even greater use of visual communications throughout the company and foster a more collaborative culture.

 

HB Communications is a leading technology solutions provider for unified communications, collaboration and audio-visual system integration. As a mid-market company with over 350 employees in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey, HB has deployed Polycom's Unified Collaboration for Lotus Sametime to help improve customer service and increase sales and profitability through greater communication and collaboration among its sales and operations teams.

 

"Having instant access to Polycom telepresence and video conferencing from within Lotus Sametime is creating tighter alignment between our teams," said Ted Thompson, vice president of technology at HB Communications, Inc. "The ability to quickly resolve issues and make faster decisions among our locations and mobile teams is resulting in better support, service and results for our customers. We are saving costs on travel, but it is the positive impact on our customers and our bottom line that matter most."