SEN Group and Polycom Enter into Strategic Alliance

By Anil Sharma

TMCnet Contributor

 

 

Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group), a global provider of unified communications solutions, and Polycom, Inc., a major player in telepresence, video and voice communications solutions, reportedly have entered into a strategic alliance and global resale agreement.

 

The pact is expected to enable customers to leverage the productivity and cost-saving benefits of Polycom (News - Alert) telepresence, HD video conferencing solutions and desktop video collaboration applications through seamless integration with the OpenScape UC environment.

 

Polycom officials said that by adopting a state-of-the-art UC environment, organizations can not only take advantage of innovative video solutions from the company, but they can increase collaboration and customer responsiveness while reducing conferencing costs and the need for employee travel.

 

“Video communication is becoming a key component of UC, and helps to dramatically improve the productivity of our customers,” said Mark Stone, chairman and CEO, the SEN Group, in a statement.

 

Stone said that working with Polycom helps the company to deliver on the Open Communications commitment and enhance its leading OpenScape UC platform with a full range of UC-enabled video solutions.

 

“Organizations across industries are adopting Polycom visual communication to drive efficiency and effectiveness among geographically dispersed teams and strengthen relationships with customers, partners and suppliers,” said Robert Hagerty (News - Alert), chairman and CEO of Polycom.

 

Hagerty said that teaming with SEN Group, the company is able to deliver these powerful collaboration capabilities within the core communication tools that people use every day, and, as an integrated component of the OpenScape UC solution, give customers a scalable platform that is easy to manage and use.

 

This, he said, supports Polycom’s Open Collaboration Network strategy and gives customers greater flexibility and investment protection for their UC environment.

Recently Polycom announced an expansion of its integrated voice and visual communication solutions for customers deploying IBM Unified Communication and Collaboration environments with support for Lotus Sametime and Lotus Notes.

 

The combined solution is designed to give users “one-click” access to on-demand voice and video collaboration tools from within Lotus software applications that can enhance teamwork, reduce costs, and help accelerate enterprise decision making among colleagues, customers and business partners.