Polycom picks up HP telepresence business, works on interop with carriers

Ericsson and Polycom have announced collaboration to provide a complete system that will enable telcos to provide hosted telepresence services to businesses and consumers.

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?

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

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.

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.

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

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,

Polycom is one of the biggest video conferencing companies out there, but for the most part its equipment is mainly associated with huge enterprise installations.

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.