Poly

Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) is extending the familiar Skype for Business user experience by announcing today that the Polycom Group Series video endpoints will include the Skype for Business User Interface. In addition to today’s announcement, Polycom is also extending the Skype for Business user interface to popular voice solutions, including the Polycom VVX 500 and 600 Series Business Media phones and the  Polycom® RealPresence Trio conference phone™.

Many organizations are wanting to move to one interface for collaboration tools to make it easy for users to join calls from any endpoint or software application. Consistency of scheduling, joining and managing a collaboration session is critical to driving user adoption.  Polycom is making this a reality by extending the easy to use Skype for Business experience beyond the desktop and mobile applications to popular voice and video solutions used in conference rooms and offices of all sizes. Customers can now seamlessly schedule, dial and join a Skype for Business call from a greater number of solutions providing one extended Skype for Business experience.  

“Many organizations across the globe are moving toward consolidating their UC environments into a single interface to drive a consistent user experience and ease of use,” says Irwin Lazar, Vice President and Service Director, Nemertes Research.  “The desire to enable a consistent method of scheduling collaboration sessions and a single-click to join meetings from any application and any location is a top priority.  Polycom’s Group Series, VVX phones, and RealPresence Trio conference phone solutions with a familiar Skype for Business user interface will enable an integrated meeting experience, and improved collaboration for Skype for Business customers.”

Existing customers who have moved, or are planning to move, to a Skype for Business environment will be able to access this new user interface via a software download. All three solutions are planned to be qualified on Office 365, available in Q4 and demonstrated at Microsoft Ignite (Polycom booth #1624).

In addition, Polycom has officially become a Skype Operations Framework partner and will assist customers with all facets of the Skype for Business lifecycle, including planning, deployment, adoption, and operations.