Polycom Executive Briefing Center Wins Award

Conferencing technology company Polycom (News - Alert) has been awarded the World Class New Center award from the Association of Briefing Program Managers (ABPM) for its Polycom Executive Briefing Center, a testing and demonstration facility that provides Polycom employees and channel partners with the ability to demonstrate telepresence, video and voice communication solutions.

Located in Santa Clara, Calif., the Executive Briefing Center is the ultimate marketing tool. It is one of several facilities the company uses to test and demonstrate its products, as well as those of its partners.

According to Michael Swade, vice president of global accounts for Polycom, the center is designed to “immerse customers in the Polycom experience and help them understand how Polycom can help transform their business as a trusted partner.”

The center features two Polycom RealPresence Experience (RPX) immersive telepresence rooms, multiple room and personal telepresence solutions, as well as partner integration solutions for leading communication platforms like Microsoft (News - Alert) OCS, IBM Sametime, Avaya Video Telephony and more. What’s more, there is an HD Voice showcase where customers can experience the HD conferencing solutions that Polycom offers.

"The Polycom center features state-of-the-art communication and collaboration capabilities with the latest telepresence, high-definition (HD) video and HD voice solutions available for customers to use,” Swade said in a release. “Polycom solutions erase the barriers of distance and the center allows customers to see how it can be applied to solve their specific organizational challenges."

“Briefing centers are becoming more and more compelling and elegant in the way they communicate the corporate story, and the bar for 'world class' is constantly being raised, as it should be,” added Roxanne McCreery, president of ABPM. “World Class is beyond excellence, and its designation has profound meaning for those who have achieved it and for those who aspire to it. We are proud to award Polycom with the World Class Center award for what the jurors deemed a ‘stunning achievement.’”

Businesses are rapidly adopting conferencing solutions for two reasons: First, business travel has become increasingly expensive and companies are slashing their travel budgets in order to cut costs and stay competitive in this down economy. Secondly, conferencing solutions and services are becoming more affordable, as the market becomes more saturated with competitors. Also driving adoption is increased network bandwidth and the advent of high definition (HD) conferencing solutions, which offer superior audio and video quality.

Polycom made news on TMCnet last week when it announced that the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) was using its telepresence solutions for its new distance learning program.

The company made news this week when it announced that partner Spirit DSP’s “Spirit voice” processing software is now integrated in the Polycom VVX 1500 business media phone.

The VVX 1500, with Polycom HD Voice, combines a personal video conferencing system with a voice over IP (VoIP) telephone, open application programming interface (API) and micro-browser for real-time delivery of personalized Web content as well as integration with business applications.