Today, Polycom marked a 25th anniversary in the industry by announcing Innovative Solutions that will Transform Collaboration Experiences along with being the First to Put People at the Center of Collaboration. They conducted a pre-launch day yesterday for press and analysts (which I was invited to but unfortunately was not able to attend), followed by an exclusive customer launch event today in New York.

“Today, we are taking a quantum leap in achieving our vision of unleashing the power of human collaboration,” said Peter Leav, Polycom’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “As we celebrate our 25th year of innovation and leadership, we are announcing breakthrough collaboration experiences that uniquely place people at the heart of collaboration enabling them to work better, smarter and more efficiently. We are delivering the workplace of the future today.” 

Led by CEO Peter Leav discussing the ‘Future of Group Collaboration’ along with Vision and Strategy to Drive Customer Success along with Michael Frendo, Executive VP of Worldwide Engineering and Ashan Willy, Sr. VP, Product Management & Worldwide Systems Engineering who both put together a very well crafted presentation…

Michael Frendo and @awilly take the stage! #FutureofWork pic.twitter.com/auK91eoYZ7

— Poly (@PolyCompany) October 7, 2015

… the company introduced the following solutions:

•  Polycom RealPresence Trio is the first smart hub for group collaboration that transforms the iconic three-point conference phone into a voice, content-sharing and video system that can fit into any team environment. Meetings start quickly with one-touch integration with calendars, where the most advanced audio performance provides the clearest and richest connection in the industry. Participants can easily pair mobile devices or laptops to the RealPresence Trio solution to share content in HD quality. Add a simple webcam and now RealPresence Trio is a full visual collaboration solution that turns any space into a high-powered work hub. Easy to deploy, RealPresence Trio technology has broad interoperability and deep integration across multiple UC platforms including Skype for Business and Microsoft Lync, BroadSoft and others.” Polycom® RealPresence Trio™, the first smart hub for group collaboration that transforms the iconic three-point conference phone into a voice, content sharing and video system

Meetings start quickly with one-touch integration with calendars, where the most advanced audio performance provides the clearest and richest connection in the industry. Participants can easily pair mobile devices or laptops to the RealPresence Trio solution to share content in HD quality. Add a simple webcam and now RealPresence Trio is a full visual collaboration solution that turns any space into a high-powered work hub.

RealPresence Trio technology has broad interoperability and deep integration across multiple UC platforms including Skype for Business and Microsoft Lync, and others.

 

• Polycom® RealPresence Centro™, the industry’s first unique center-of-the-workspace collaboration solution built for the natural way humans brainstorm, ideate and solve problems.

Considered to be the “crown jewel” of all product announcements for the day, Polycom RealPresence Centro is the industry’s first collaboration solution purpose-built to put people at the center of collaboration, built with, as Polycom deems, instinctual human behavior in mind where people feel more comfortable communicating and collaborating in the round. Polycom’s patented 360-degree voice and video technology automatically tracks the speaker, while also showing the entire meeting space on the same screen.

RealPresence Centro in the process puts those on the far end of the call in the middle of the conversation thereby enabling deeper engagement, quicker decisions and ultimately better outcomes. Intuitive touch screens are designed to, most importantly, get a meeting started on time.

RealPresence Centro also offers wireless pairing with many devices and has unique built-in proximity sensors to enable responsive and intelligent interaction.

 

 

• Polycom® RealPresence Debut™, the first true enterprise-grade video collaboration solution for small rooms offering high quality video collaboration made simple, elegant and affordable for smaller spaces.

 

RealPresence Debut sports an elegant design that enables high quality visual collaboration for huddle and smaller room environments, as well as for small or medium sized businesses, those normally with limited IT resources.

Set up time takes just minutes (I even heard some reports of seconds) and the user interface has been designed to simply enable anyone to start and manage a call. The all-in-one design incorporates Polycom® NoiseBlock™ technology, and a pan, tilt and zoom camera, and 1080p quality for video and content sharing. RealPresence Debut is cloud ready and can easily connect into Polycom’s RealPresence Cloud services to ensure easy and effective deployment with no IT support necessary.

 

• Polycom® RealPresence® Medialign™, turnkey Polycom® RealPresence® Group Series solution for multiple work environments.

Polycom RealPresence Medialign enables consistent collaboration solutions across the enterprise without the need for any alteration to a room. RealPresence Medialign boasts a modern, all-in-one design and features Polycom’s patented voice, content-sharing/management and video technology.

RealPresence Medialign technology can reportedly be quickly assembled and installed without tools and interoperates with a broad array of UC platforms. RealPresence Medialign features unique NoiseBlock technology, Polycom® Acoustic Fence™ audio technology and Polycom® EagleEye™ Producer and Polycom® EagleEye™ Director camera technology.

 

• Polycom® Concierge, the first enterprise software that instantly connects your device to solutions across Polycom’s collaboration portfolio for ease of conference control

Polycom introduced Concierge enterprise software that automatically connects personal devices, including personal PCs and smartphones to Polycom solutions. Polycom Concierge technology enables user devices to be at the center of meeting control, wirelessly connecting to Polycom solutions including RealPresence Group Series, RealPresence Medialign, Polycom® Open Telepresence Experience® rooms and RealPresence Immersive Studio^TM systems.

Upon entering the room, users will experience familiar interface for conference control and content sharing, personalizing the group meeting. Participants can easily invite additional team members, adjust the volume and far-end camera angles or mute active participants all from an application on their own device. Polycom Concierge technology allows users to share content from their devices and even see content shared from others – up close on their own device. Users can also easily connect to a call right from their calendar from any room.

 

• Polycom also announced an industry first solution with Microsoft Office 365 environments – the Polycom® VVX® business media phones will be the first phones to support and interoperate with the forthcoming cloud voice service offering as part of Microsoft Office 365. 

(Note: Earlier this year, Polycom and Microsoft announced a partnership to develop joint solutions for Skype for Business).

Ira M. Weinstein, senior analyst and partner at Wainhouse Research said, “People work differently today. And they work in different places. Ideally, technology should allow customers to make any location a mobile workstation. But few solutions on the market today address the business and workflow issues that come with the next generation workplace.

About Polycom’s new solutions offerings Weinstein stated, “Polycom’s new releases challenge the notion that work happens in traditional meeting rooms only. Instead, these solutions bring collaboration to the places customers want to work including small meeting rooms and informal meeting spaces.”

Another well-known UC industry Analyst Roopam Jain at Frost & Sullivan, also weighed in on the day:

At @Polycom #futureofwork product launch in NYC. Jam packed customer #collaboration event

— Roopam Jain (@Roopamjain) October 7, 2015

For more information consult Polycom’s website.