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Polycom, BroadSoft Expand Unified Communications Portfolio with New Video Solutions


WEBWIRE

Polycom and BroadSoft UC solution features IP telephony with HD Voice, video conferencing and telepresence, creating expanded opportunities for service providers

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., BroadSoft Connections 2009 - Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), the global leader in telepresence, video and voice communication solutions, and BroadSoft, Inc., the leading worldwide provider of VoIP applications in the telecommunications industry, today announced enhanced unified communications (UC) solutions featuring IP telephony with Polycom HD Voice™, video conferencing and telepresence capabilities. Delivered as a hosted service through BroadSoft® service provider customers, this expanded voice and video combination provides a complete and cost-effective communications solution for small and medium sized businesses.

Polycom announced that its Polycom HDX™ personal and room telepresence solutions and Polycom RMX 2000™ and RMX 4000™ real-time media conferencing platforms are now interoperable with BroadSoft’s BroadWorks® VoIP application platform. Customers now have a range of choices of high definition (HD) video solutions to meet their specific application and space requirements. The Polycom HDX systems feature dual-stack H.323/SIP capabilities, enabling customers to migrate to telepresence on the BroadSoft SIP compliant platform, while continuing to leverage existing video conferencing investments and connect with the large installed base of H.323 video conferencing systems in use today. The Polycom RMX 2000 and 4000 systems offer voice, video and unified conferencing capabilities and can connect people using different types of voice and video devices on different networks within the same meeting.

“Our service provider customers are seeing increasing demand for video communication delivered in a hosted model, which enables businesses to improve collaboration and communications without a large capital expenditure,” said David Bukovsky, vice president of products at BroadSoft. “Deepening our relationship with Polycom enables service providers to deliver greater business value through new offerings that immediately impact business productivity and a measurable return on investment by reducing the need for business travel and lowering an individual’s carbon footprint.”

Polycom and BroadSoft currently deliver hosted unified communications that combine BroadWorks and Polycom’s line of award-winning VVX 1500™ business media phones, SoundPoint® IP desktop phones, SoundStation® IP conference phones and KIRK DECT wireless solutions. The new offering expands those capabilities to include the Polycom HDX personal and room telepresence solutions and Polycom RMX 2000 and 4000 real-time media conferencing platforms.

The newly expanded video solutions enable a number of applications, including:

* HD unified communications across the organization – Organizations can greatly enhance their collaboration among geographically dispersed workers and teams through HD unified communication capabilities, which allow people to work more efficiently and effectively across distances. Customers have a complete range of video solutions including Polycom HDX telepresence systems in meeting rooms and executive desktops, and the Polycom VVX 1500 business media phone on desktops throughout the organization for company-wide visual communication.
* Intercompany visual communication – The standards-based Polycom platform features dual stack H.323/SIP capabilities on the endpoints and multi-network capabilities on the bridges, which enables businesses to more easily connect with their customers, vendors and partners to develop closer relationships through more frequent, face-to-face collaboration.
* Dial-in “Meet Me” voice, video and unified conferencing services – Leveraging the unified conferencing capabilities of the Polycom RMX 2000 and RMX 4000 real-time media conferencing platforms, service providers can give customers always available meeting room numbers for ad-hoc voice, video or unified conferences. The bridge supports all standards-based video endpoints from legacy systems to high definition telepresence rooms.
* Hosted event services – Also leveraging the Polycom RMX 2000 and RMX 4000 platforms, service providers can manage hosted scheduled events for customers combining voice, video unified collaboration capabilities.

Polycom’s open SIP-based desktop and conference phones currently provide rich support for BroadSoft telephony features and offer simplified deployment and management with self-registration, auto-provisioning and auto-upgrade features. Video communication capabilities were originally added to this portfolio with the recently launched Polycom VVX 1500 business media phone, which combines a fully featured voice over IP (VoIP) telephone featuring Polycom HD Voice, and a personal video conferencing system in a sleek design that includes a seven-inch color touch screen. The VVX 1500 is also interoperable with other BroadSoft video telephony ecosystem partners, such as CounterPath’s Bria for BroadWorks and the Grandstream GXV3140, providing expanding collaboration opportunities.

“The BroadSoft/Polycom UC solution gives organizations access to technology that can transform their businesses through better collaboration, faster decision making and closer relationships with customers, vendors and partners,” said Joe Sigrist, senior vice president and general manager of video solutions, Polycom. “We are excited to work with BroadSoft and its partners to address the growing opportunities for hosted UC services.”

About BroadSoft
BroadSoft®, the world-wide leader of VoIP application software, enables the delivery of hosted telephony and multimedia services. BroadSoft’s family of carrier-class products, including its award-winning flagship BroadWorks® technology, empowers wireless, wireline and cable carriers to deliver next-generation voice and multimedia applications and advanced features that enable them to increase revenue, enhance competitive differentiation and increase customer satisfaction. BroadSoft products deliver the scale, open architecture and reliability that the world’s leading telecommunications companies demand to serve mission-critical enterprise and residential broadband customers. BroadSoft provides VoIP applications to nine of the top 10 and 15 of the top 25 largest carriers worldwide, as measured by recent annual revenue, including KPN, Korea Telecom, Qwest, SingTel, Sprint, Swisscom, Telefonica de Espana, Telstra, T-Systems, and Verizon. For additional information, go to www.broadsoft.com.

BroadSoft and BroadWorks are registered trademarks of BroadSoft, Inc. All other names are trademarks of their respective companies.

About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) is the global leader in telepresence, video, and voice solutions and a visionary in communications that empower people to connect and collaborate everywhere. Visit www.polycom.com for more information and follow us on Twitter @AllAboutPolycom.



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