Polycom and Microsoft Lync Help Customers Cut Costs

(Marketwire - 02/28/11) - Enterprise Connect -- Polycom, Inc., a global leader in unified communications, and Microsoft Corp. continue to help change the way organizations communicate. At the same time they are enabling leading companies to be present, virtually anytime and anywhere, during reaping substantial cost, efficiency and productivity advantages from integrated UC solutions combining Microsoft Lync and Polycom.

"Microsoft and Polycom are committed to a roadmap that delivers interoperable UC solutions to help transform enterprise communications, and they are delivering," said Rich Costello, senior technology analyst, IDC. "Since its public launch in November 2010, Lync continues to gain significant traction with end users. It's very promising for the industry when we see clients like LA Fitness improve productivity, enhance team collaboration and save money by deploying these flexible, high-quality, multi-vendor UC solutions."

Helping Clients Lower Expenses, Enhance Productivity and Improve the Bottom LineNorth America sports club network LA Fitness implemented Microsoft and Polycom UC solutions as its primary voice platform, and found it provides better quality, reliability and fault-tolerance than its previous mix of traditional private branch exchange telephony systems and an open-source voice over IP solution. Implementing the Microsoft and Polycom UC solutions is as well saving LA Fitness over $500,000 annually and improved customer service.

The Microsoft

"The Microsoft and Polycom UC solutions allowed us to replace our existing telephone system with a more reliable, fuller featured solution, with the added benefit of in point of fact unified communications," said George Bedar, chief information officer for LA Fitness. "In substance, we solved all of our telecommunication problems, with real-time instant messaging, presence, conferencing and integration with our other line of business applications. We as well federated some of these applications with our partners and vendors, enabling even broader team collaboration and greater efficiencies. We look forward to extending our UC capabilities to video and other forms of enhanced collaboration."

Microsoft and Polycom Extending the Promise of UC Virtually Anytime, AnywhereUnlike others, the combination of Microsoft and Polycom solutions deliver a complete, high-definition, interoperable and standards based end-to-end UC solution for voice, video, conferencing, and collaboration. Polycom and Microsoft continue to deliver a shared vision for UC. Microsoft collaborates with Polycom's R&D to help enhance support for Lync features on Polycom's entire line of Microsoft-optimized UC solutions, including Polycom telepresence solutions that require up to 50 percent less bandwidth than other systems; desktop and conference phones and UC devices featuring unrivalled HDVoice™ clarity; and a scalable and resilient supporting infrastructure, the Polycom UC Intelligent Core, that allows users to connect anytime, anywhere using different devices.

The Polycom video solutions as well incorporate Microsoft's real-time video codec, enabling communications throughout enterprises as then as B2B environments and across multiple collaboration tools. With this natively integrated solution, companies can lower their total cost of ownership, streamline IT management, and improve redundancy protection. Furthermore, Polycom will innovate by offering Lync voice and video solutions that support CCCP, which will allow the Polycom endpoints to be easily controlled from Lync, letting users take full advantage of the rich user interface Microsoft provides and enabling users to connect anytime, anywhere.

About Microsoft Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

About PolycomPolycom, Inc. 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.

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