Microsoft Polycom deal to spur unified comms market

The deal could help Polycom and Microsoft compete better with the combined power of Cisco and Tandberg

Polycom has signed a multi-year global agreement with Microsoft designed to enhance the reach of both companies in the growing unified communications (UC) market.

The firms will work together to develop new standard-based products to meet the demands of enterprises large and small.

Polycom chief executive Andrew Miller believes that the partnership will bring a level of differentiation to the market.

"By creating interoperable products that work with our existing offerings and new Polycom and Microsoft systems we can offer a new class of best-of-breed products that will offer something different," he said.

"There are some really exciting opportunities around product development, such as next-generation Polycom CX endpoints optimised for Microsoft UC products and innovative room-based video solutions on Microsoft Communication Server 14. "

Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of UC at Microsoft, claimed that the partnership will offer huge benefits for the firm's customer base.

"The history of the technology industry shows that inflection points are typically around key partnerships, and I believe the Microsoft UC solution with products from Polycom is going to ignite this for the benefit of customers," he said.

Forrester analyst Henry Dewing suggested in a blog post that the move could have a major impact.

"While there was no publicly identified budget, I got the distinct impression from talking to Mark Roberts, Polycom's vice president of partner marketing, that this is to be a multi-year, double-digit million-dollar commitment on the part of both companies," he said.

"With big dollars being committed to designing, developing and delivering interoperable solutions, the companies are putting a public face on the intentions of the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum [UCIF]."

Dewing added that such partnerships, if replicated across the UC industry, could bring about rapid advances in the use of the technology, and highlight its benefits for the business community.

"If this model can be applied by all members of the UCIF, and if membership can be extended to more major UC developers, the industry can accelerate the rate at which the business results of UC buyers are positively affected," he said.