To make it easier for dispersed employees to connect and collaborate over voice and video, organisations around the world have come to rely on the popular and reliable combination of Microsoft Lync and Polycom solutions to launch video and voice collaboration sessions easily and intuitively from within familiar business applications and workflows. Today, Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) announced an expansion of its portfolio of more than 40 offerings for Microsoft® Lync® to include the new Polycom® CX8000 room system for Microsoft Lync, a video conferencing system that brings the power of Microsoft Lync to the conference room with HD video, simple room controls and an optional, centre-of-table experience with the industry’s only family of 360-degree cameras for Microsoft Lync.
New Polycom CX8000 Room System for Microsoft Lync
The Polycom CX8000 solution is a videoconferencing room system for Microsoft Lync that includes presence, contact search, instant messaging, HD video conferencing, HD audio, virtual white boarding, touch display-powered presentations, application sharing, editing on shared documents, and more. Tight integration with Microsoft Outlook will help users, both in the meeting room and remote participants, start and manage meetings more efficiently. The Polycom CX8000 room system for Microsoft Lync includes several features that help users take advantage of Microsoft Lync 2013 such as built-in multiparty video and a better overall audio and video experience that leverages the open standards-based scalable video coding (SVC) implementation. The addition of lifecycle services helps drive adoption for video and voice collaboration in Microsoft Lync environments, ultimately increasing usage and driving a greater return on investment.
The Polycom CX8000 builds on the award-winning, centre-of-table experience of the Polycom® CX5000 Unified Conference Station, a 360-degree, panoramic 720p HD video collaboration system, and the only phone and camera combination in the world today that is natively integrated with Microsoft Lync.
Bringing the next generation of 360-degree camera technology to the Polycom CX8000, Polycom plans to offer the Polycom® CX5100 Unified Conference Station, upon completion of qualification, as an optional feature for the Polycom CX8000. The Polycom CX5100 system is the industry’s only 360-degree, panoramic 1080p HD video collaboration camera and phone combination that delivers a centre-of-the-table experience and Polycom’s legendary HD Voice. Polycom CX5100 can be used in conjunction with Polycom CX8000, as well as with computers through a USB connection
The entire portfolio of Polycom voice, video and infrastructure solutions are interoperable with Microsoft Lync.
Supporting Quotes
“We turned to Microsoft and Polycom for a state-of-the-art and feature-rich unified communications solution that is easy to use and manage. Previously, we had been dealing with a very fragmented, aging and unreliable set of phone systems solutions from a range of vendors,” said Arian de Wit, General Manager, Information & Technology for New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research. “We first installed Microsoft Lync for presence and IM and then added Polycom phones. The result has been excellent voice quality that’s helped us remove the barrier of distance between our employees and we’ve had great feedback about the ease-of-use of phone features like voicemail and dial-by-name. We’ve been so pleased with the simplicity and ease of use that we will look at replacing our aging videoconferencing systems from another vendor soon, as they now seem like a ‘legacy’ solution. The Microsoft and Polycom solution and direction is clearly superior to other options.”
“Companies of all sizes recognise the need to break down the barrier of distance between dispersed teams of customers, partners and employees to harness the benefits of collaborating together in real time to solve everyday challenges. The Polycom CX8000 room system for Microsoft Lync meets this need with an intuitive and natural experience,” said Ted Colton, Group Vice President of Strategic Alliances, Polycom. “We are excited to deliver this solution to the market building upon Polycom’s portfolio of Microsoft Lync solutions and services.”
“We have long worked with Polycom to ensure our solutions are interoperable and we’re delighted to add Polycom CX8000 for Microsoft Lync video system to the portfolio,” said Giovanni Mezgec, General Manager of Lync Product Marketing for Microsoft. “With Polycom, we’re able to solve the problems organisations face. Together we provide reliable unified communications and collaboration because Polycom shares our commitment to providing the highest quality products and superior customer support.”
“Customers demand simple to deploy, easy to use, interoperable solutions. The close alliance between Polycom and Microsoft provides those end-to-end unified collaboration solutions that the industry wants and needs,” said Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst, ZK Research. “The expanded portfolio of video and voice solutions optimised for Microsoft Lync is proof that Polycom is committed to delivering on its strategic relationship with Microsoft so that they can provide greater value for their joint customers around the world.”
Availability
The Polycom CX8000 room system for Microsoft Lync is available for order today in select countries and will ship in March.
