Poly

 

ENTERPRISE CONNECT 2013, ORLANDO, Fla - Mar 18, 2013: Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), the global leader in open, standards-based unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), today announced broad interoperability for Microsoft® Lync™ 2013 that includes new qualified Polycom voice solutions and a new software extension to the Polycom® RealPresence® Platform that will deliver interoperability between Lync 2013 and the full portfolio of Polycom standards-based video collaboration and content sharing solutions. These announcements further the extensive partnership between the two companies, building on Polycom’s portfolio of 40 video, voice and content sharing solutions that are interoperable or optimized to work with Lync 2010 today. Together, Microsoft and Polycom offer the most complete UC&C portfolio at the lowest total cost of ownership.

 

"With today’s announcement, Polycom will deliver the broadest interoperability for Lync 2013 in our industry,” said Andy Miller, President and CEO, Polycom. “The majority of companies choose Polycom and Microsoft over other vendors for a complete UC&C solution today, and we will continue to ensure that our joint customers have a superior collaboration experience, unmatched interoperability and investment protection. The combination of Polycom and Microsoft software provides a seamless UC solution for video, voice, conferencing and collaboration, from anywhere, anytime, and drives increased productivity across organizations.”

 

As part of today’s news, Polycom announced native integration and Lync Server 2013 qualification for Polycom® VVX® Business Media Phones (Polycom VVX 500 and Polycom VVX 600 models), with the Polycom VVX 300 and Polycom VVX 400 models expected to achieve qualification in Q2 2013. In addition, the Polycom RealPresence Platform and the Polycom HDX® Series and Polycom® RealPresence® Group Series of video collaboration endpoints are expected to be compatible with Lync Server 2013 in June.

 

New software extensions to the Polycom RealPresence Platform will include software updates to the Polycom® RealPresence® Collaboration Servers (RMX Series® and Collaboration Server 800s) and Polycom® RealPresence® Virtualization Manager™ (Polycom® DMA®), which will deliver Lync 2013 interoperability across Polycom’s full portfolio of video solutions, including the new Polycom RealPresence Group Series, executive desktop video systems, mobile video apps and other endpoints.

 

With these new software updates, Polycom and Microsoft customers will be able to use endpoints and infrastructure supporting open-standards based H.264 AVC or SVC (Scalable Video Coding) with Lync 2013. Last year, Polycom licensed the first open standards-based SVC implementation royalty free to the industry, including the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCI Forum), to ensure adoption and industry-wide interoperability (see press release). Microsoft implemented open standards-based SVC into Lync 2013. Last fall, Polycom added its open standards-based SVC to the RealPresence Platform, which provides customers with 3X HD multipoint video capacity for greater scalability and dramatically lower TCO, superior performance, and backwards- and forwards-compatibility for investment protection.

 

The software extensions announced today will also include Lync 2013 interoperability for the recently launched Polycom® RealPresence® Content Sharing Suite, a software application that allows Lync users to share content back and forth with standards-based video collaboration devices such as room-based video solutions (e.g., Polycom HDX systems) or mobile apps (e.g., Polycom® RealPresence® Mobile 2.2 app). Additionally, the software extensions will include a new cross-platform scheduling application that integrates with Lync 2013, Exchange and Polycom RealPresence solutions to allow combined Lync 2013 and traditional video endpoint meetings using existing Microsoft Outlook scheduling capabilities. This capability will enable customers to easily schedule video meetings with both participants and video endpoints, which makes setting up and managing video calls easier for end users while freeing up IT support resources.

 

Together, Polycom® RealPresence® video and voice solutions and Microsoft Lync unify communications across work environments – on the go, home and work offices, conference rooms and immersive theaters. With the combination of Lync and Polycom RealPresence solutions, employees can launch video collaboration sessions easily and intuitively from within familiar interfaces and normal workflows, from any work environment on- or off-premises. They simply click a name in their Lync contact list to securely collaborate face-to-face via Polycom video in a conference room or on a mobile device.

 

On March 1, Polycom finalized the acquisition of Sentri, Inc., a leading provider of advanced services with expertise in Microsoft technologies (including Lync), UC&C, video collaboration, cloud services and networking. As a Premier Support for Lync™ Partners (PSLP) certified company, Sentri brings significant expertise integrating Microsoft Lync with Polycom solutions that will benefit customers.

 

Polycom VVX 500 and Polycom VVX 600 Business Media Phones natively integrate and are qualified for Lync Server 2013 today, and the Polycom VVX 300 and Polycom VVX 400 models are expected to pass qualification in Q2 2013. The Polycom HDX Series and Polycom RealPresence Group Series of video collaboration endpoints, and Polycom RealPresence Platform, are expected to be compatible with Lync 2013 in June 2013. The new software extensions to Polycom RealPresence Platform that will deliver broad interoperability between Lync 2013 and Polycom’s full portfolio of video solutions with support for Lync 2013 features are currently planned to be available in the second half of 2013. Polycom RealPresence Content Sharing Suite is available today.