Microsoft and Polycom launch telepresence solution

Polycom and Microsoft affirmed they are serious about going after the business communications market with the launch of the Polycom CX7000 Unified Communications System, which the companies said is the first room video telepresence solution purpose built to run on the software giant’s Lync platform for UC.

Microsoft already boasts a fast growing installed base for Lync since it launched last year, while Polycom reports some two million points of presence for its video conferencing solutions, a market which Gartner forecasts will deliver compound annual growth of 15.2 percent through to 2015.

Michael Chetner, managing director of Polycom Australia and New Zealand told CRN that the CX7000, codenamed Rally, would be aimed primarily at enterprise customers with other opportunities expected to emerge in specific verticals, especially education.

“We expect to take advantage of the generous licensing arrangements Microsoft has in the education market,” Chetner said.

He added that Rally would create opportunities for Polycom’s existing partners in Australia and Microsoft’s partners selling Lync as well as Office 365 Sharepoint implementations. The companies also expected to bring on a number of new partners as the market evolved. 

“This is a perfect storm with the real compliment of UC solutions from Polycom and Microsoft and all the interoperability we have," Chetner said.

But while Polycom enjoys a leadership position in the enterprise market for videoconferencing, Chetner admitted that the industry is seeing increased commoditisation, driven in large part by the basically free video services offered by the likes of Google and of course Skype, which Microsoft bought last month, and which it intends to exploit with its huge instaleld base for Windows.

Asked whether he though Microsoft's acquisition of Skype posed any threat to Polycom’s ongoing video conferencing partnership with Microsoft, Chetner said he understood the move was aimed mainly at the consumer market.

“We spend lot of time with Microsoft in Redmond and the way we see it and have exposure to the story is that Skype is a consumer play,” Chetner said

“Having Skype in Microsoft’s hands lets us deal with one of the problems Skype has in that its proprietary.”

Polycom’s chief executive Andrew Miller affirmed the company’s commitment to working with Microsoft on more UC projects.

“The new Polycom CX7000 room telepresence solution, custom-built to integrate with Microsoft Lync, takes the seamless, highly intuitive experience to a new level by enabling customers to connect and collaborate how, when, and where they want,” he said.

“Expect more of the same as Polycom continues to work with Microsoft to accelerate UC adoption.”

Kirk Gregersen, senior director for Microsoft Lync said that the solutions the company was developing with Polycom would serve to drive adoption of telepresence among businesses.

“The power of UC is to eliminate barriers to teamwork and bring people face-to-face,” he said.

"Polycom and Microsoft share a passion for delivering easy-to-use UC solutions that transform businesses into highly collaborative environments.”