“Our expanded integration with Office Communications Server 2007 supports Polycom’s VC2 strategy that moves customers from traditional video conferencing to tightly integrated visual communications solutions that are simpler to use and manage and deliver a better user experience,” said Joe Sigrist, senior vice president and general manager of video solutions at Polycom. “Polycom’s solutions work with Office Communications Server 2007 and will allow users to launch HD voice, video and telepresence calls intuitively using the contact list within Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, presence-enabled Microsoft applications and on Polycom video endpoints. It will also give IT managers a tightly integrated solution that can be easily deployed and effectively managed within their Microsoft unified communications environment.”
“Delivering the next generation of communications requires high impact solutions that work across a customer’s infrastructure,” said Eric Swift, senior director, Unified Communications Group, at Microsoft Corp. “Polycom’s delivery of voice and video solutions for Office Communications Server 2007 expands the reach of audio and video conferencing to the broader organisation so information workers can connect and collaborate beyond the conference room walls.”
Polycom endpoints and infrastructure will connect to Office Communications Server 2007 using the session initiation protocol (SIP) and will allow seamless video calling with desktop video collaboration applications, high definition (HD) visual communications endpoints and telepresence solutions, providing users with powerful, one-click video collaboration within Microsoft unified communications platform either from a contact list, as an escalation of an instant messaging session, or as part of a communications enabled business process. Making optimal use of the Microsoft unified communications platform, Polycom’s integration will also enhance the customer’s ability to deploy video communication seamlessly and securely across corporate boundaries.
Polycom solutions will register, authenticate and share presence information with Office Communications Server 2007, allowing users in the Office Communications Server 2007 network to see the presence status of Polycom video endpoints, for example on their Office Communicator 2007 client or on a presence-enabled IP phone. Users of Polycom video endpoints will also see the presence status of others users in the Office Communications Server 2007 domain. This integration makes it simple for users to launch video calls by clicking on presence-enabled contacts. Polycom will also include visual communications solutions supporting Microsoft RT Video codec and RT Audio codec technologies, will allow users to schedule voice and video conferences within Microsoft Office Outlook, and will enable users to launch unified voice and/or video conferences. The solution will also allow users to connect with other standards-based video conferencing endpoints at the highest quality possible (including HD) and join users with different device types (voice, video) on different networks (i.e. IP, ISDN, PSTN) in the same call.
In addition to video solutions, Polycom offers a broad line of phones optimised for Office Communicator 2007, which includes the CX 700 desktop IP phone, CX 200 desktop phone and CX 100 personal speakerphone. The phones deliver crystal-clear, high definition wideband audio and provide full, convenient access to the advanced presence-enabled features of the Office Communicator 2007.