Ericsson & Polycom team so telcos can offer telepresence

Polycom is to acquire HP's visual collaboration business, and is teaming with a number of telcos to promote the use of telepresence and videoconferencing.

When Polycom, one of the best-known names in video conferencing and telepresence, warned of weak quarterly earnings yesterday, it raised a red flag for The VAR Guy. Has Polycom (NASDAQ: PLCM) hit a temporary bump, or is there a bigger industry issue here involving soft demand for video conferencing and telepresence solutions?

Video conferencing is fast becoming a popular tool for communications among a growing number of businesses. But few want to invest the money in deploying the hardware necessary to make enterprise-class video conferencing and collaboration.

Polycom (NASDAQ: PLCM) will combine its RealPresence videoconferencing platform with AT&T’s (NYSE: T) Business Exchange telepresence solution and other services in a strategic accord between the two companies to deliver a higher grade of business-centric, cloud-based video meetings and collaborations. Video is well on its way to becoming a universal presence not only in the IT marketplace and

AARNet has joined the Open Visual Communications Consortium (OVCC) - the body created by Polycom last June to develop telepresence interoperability across the networks of different service providers.

Polycom (NASDAQ: PLCM) has acquired Sentri, a Westborough, Mass.-based IT services specialist supporting Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) solutions such as Lync, SharePoint and Office 365, in a purchase the video collaboration vendor believes will help grow its services business and tighten its ties to Redmond. Polycom did not specify the exact purchase price for Sentri, saying only that the transaction,

AARNet and Cisco have teamed up to enable AARNet member institutions to interconnect their Cisco TelePresence videoconferencing installations via a Cisco TelePresence Exchange.

Written by: Stuart Corner | Published in: MarketVideoconferencing specialist Polycom has unveiled software to "provide universal access to enterprise-grade video collaboration to hundreds of millions of people" by letting users of its enterprise products easily add participants via Skype, Facebook, Google Talk and other 'social media' video products.

Written by: Peter Dinham | Published in: MarketUnified Communications and Collaboration vendor, Polycom, has introduced to the market a series of new financing options that it says puts comprehensive, tailored UC&C solutions within reach of more customers. At the same time, Polycom also released a range of financing options for its channel partners.