Polycom Drives Telepresence Adoption By Expanding Portfolio With Breakthrough Innovations

New Solutions Eliminate Traditional Barriers To Adoption, Enabling ’UC Everywhere’ for All Types of Business Users, from Enterprises to SMBs and Teleworkers

* Polycom EagleEye Director creates the first unique and intimate personalized conference room experience
* New addition to award-winning HDX family, the HDX 4500 All-in-One executive desktop telepresence solution enhances productivity with HD quality at up to 50 percent less bandwidth than similar solutions
* Polycom Telepresence m100 delivers PC-based mobile telepresence

PLEASANTON, Calif. - Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), a global leader in unified communications (UC), today added to its award-winning line of telepresence solutions with three innovative new offerings – the EagleEye Director room camera tracking system, the HDX® 4500 executive desktop telepresence system, and the mobile telepresence m100 solution.

“We are continuing to deliver on our UC EverywhereSM vision and strategy with cutting-edge advancements that leverage our UC Intelligent Core™ technology and the cloud to personalize and extend the UC experience,” said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, Polycom chief development officer. “Polycom is leading in UC innovation through our customer-centric development that brings solutions to market that enable new applications, increase interoperability, enhance productivity, and promote the viral use of telepresence.”

PERSONALIZED AND INTIMATE TELEPRESENCE IN CONFERENCE ROOMS: Polycom EagleEye Director creates first unique personalized conference room experience
An industry first, Polycom is delivering a “production studio experience” for conference room telepresence environments. The EagleEye Director reinvents the conference room experience, making room-based telepresence easier and more intimate than ever before through an innovative coupling of voice triangulation, face-finding technology, and a dual-camera tracking system. Unlike other products on the market today, the EagleEye Director delivers a highly personalized face-to-face telepresence experience in any conference room by ensuring the speaking party is always highlighted (zoomed in and centered) for a personalized one-to-many experience. Unlike simple camera tracking technology of the past, the EagleEye Director gracefully transitions between highlighting individual speakers to capturing the entire room, allowing users to replicate a life-like conversation and drive more productive meetings.

The EagleEye Director transforms the “lost in a big room” feeling of many other group systems into a richer, custom experience for everyone in the room. By automatically finding and focusing on speaking parties, the EagleEye Director eliminates the need for making camera adjustments during a call and making inadvertent mistakes with the remote control. The unsurpassed, seamless experience is an available option for all HDX® Room Telepresence systems, delivering ongoing investment protection and extended value to existing technology investments.

“Not every meeting room’s layout is ideally suited for videoconferencing. The result is a compromised user experience in which some remote participants appear too small on screen during video meetings,” said Ira Weinstein, senior analyst and partner at Wainhouse Research. “EagleEye Director’s ability to intelligently zoom in and focus on active speakers provides an ’up-close and personal’ video experience without costly room upgrades or noticeable camera panning during conferences.”

TELEPRESENCE ON THE EXECUTIVE DESKTOP: HDX 4500 brings All-in-One UC to the executive desk, amplifying productivity at lower total cost of ownership
The HDX 4500 desktop telepresence solution increases productivity for business executives and small groups with an all-in-one solution, delivering stunning HD quality at up to 50 percent less bandwidth than similar solutions. The newest member of the HDX 4000 family, the HDX 4500 brings the highest quality video and audio conferencing to the executive desktop through an all-in-one, standards-based, innovative solution. The desktop telepresence solution eliminates the need for peripherals that crowd an executive’s desk space while offering a large LCD display and Polycom® UltimateHD™ technology for a more realistic experience. The HDX 4500 delivers standards-based interoperability and the broadest native integration with Polycom® Open Collaboration Network™ (POCN) Partners: Microsoft, HP, IBM, Juniper, BroadSoft, Siemens, McAfee, and Avaya. The unmatched combination of less bandwidth and native integration helps drive a low total cost of ownership while adding the broadest availability for collaboration.

Key benefits and features offered by the entire HDX 4000 family include:

Up to 50 percent bandwidth cost savings based on the benefits of H.264 High Profile technology, a powerful standards-based video compression technology;
Highest quality of experience over IP networks with sophisticated management of both audio and video packet loss undetected by the user;
Optional four-way MPPlus with HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content protection) enables the seamless extension from point-to-point to multi-point video communication; and
The power of 1080p (high-definition) video and content sharing with a 24-inch display.

MOBILE TELEPRESENCE: Polycom Telepresence m100 delivers portable PC-based telepresence
Polycom empowers SMBs to easily deploy an affordable and professional high-definition video experience with the Telepresence m100 software application for PCs. The standards-based software allows users to instantaneously share content in a video conference and connect to any standards-based telepresence solutions, including both H.323 and SIP deployments. When deployed on laptops, the Telepresence m100 offers users an unrivaled portable UC experience. Coupled with its recent video software announcements on Samsung Galaxy Tab and Motorola Xoom, Polycom is extending the benefits of standards-based, enterprise-class telepresence to laptops, tablets and pads, delivering groundbreaking mobile and PC-based UC solutions.

The Polycom Telepresence m100 software is easily loaded onto any PC and is ideal for SMBs and small team deployments. The affordable price point allows organizations to easily and immediately deploy to provide their office employees, teleworkers, or road warriors with high quality, reliable video communications from their PC. The simple, “instant messenger-style” interface allows users to make point-and-click calls from stored lists with little training for instant adoption. The software application works seamlessly with most USB cameras and embedded cameras for simplified deployment and ease of use. Features include:

Personal telepresence performance with high-definition video receive;
Standards-based content sharing with remote participants at the push of a button;
Firewall traversal options enabling communication to customers and suppliers; and
Dual-stack support allowing users to call both legacy and the latest video-enabled devices to protect technology investment.

Pricing and Availability
The EagleEye Director and the HDX4500 will be available late April through certified channel partners starting at a list price of $8,499 and $11,999, respectively. The Telepresence m100 will be available in June through certified channel partners starting at a list price of $49. For more information, visit: www.polycom.com/products/.

About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) is a global leader in unified communications solutions with industry-leading telepresence, video, voice, and infrastructure solutions built on open standards. Polycom powers smarter conversations, transforming lives and businesses worldwide. Please visit www.polycom.com for more information or connect with Polycom on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

NOTE: The product plans, specifications, and descriptions herein are provided for information only and subject to change without notice, and are provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied. The parties reserve the right to modify future product plans at any time. Products and related specifications referenced herein are not guaranteed and will be delivered on a when and if available basis.

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding future events and future demand for our products, including statements regarding future product offerings and availability and the platforms on which Polycom’s mobile solutions will become available. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including the impact of competition on our product sales and for our customers and partners, the impact of increased competition due to consolidation in our industry or competition from companies that are larger or that have greater resources than we do, potential fluctuations in results and future growth rates, risks associated with general economic conditions and external market factors, the market acceptance of Polycom’s products and changing market demands, including demands for differing technologies or product and services offerings, the development of contractual relationships with third parties and possible delays in the development, availability and shipment of new products and service offerings. Many of these risks and uncertainties are discussed in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, and in other reports filed by Polycom with the SEC. Polycom disclaims any intent or obligations to update these forward-looking statements.