| [May 07, 2012] |
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Polycom Transforms HomeAway to a Video Collaboration Culture to Efficiently Operate Its Vacation Rental Business Spanning More Than 640,000 Rental Properties in 168 Countries
PLEASANTON, Calif. --(Business Wire)--
Polycom,
Inc. (Nasdaq:PLCM), the global leader in open standards-based
unified communications (UC), today announced that HomeAway, the world's
largest online marketplace for vacation rentals, is using Polycom (News - Alert)
RealPresence video collaboration solutions to transform its culture to
video collaboration, allowing employees to communicate visually,
face-to-face across its many distributed business locations. The video
solution includes the Polycom®
RealPresence® Platform, along with video systems to connect
employees and clients across various environments ranging from
conference rooms to work offices to home offices to mobile or field
offices. Video collaboration is allowing HomeAway to pursue its goals of
faster and more effective collaboration to increase organizational
productivity and reduce operating costs.
"We live and breathe video collaboration - it's fundamental to our
culture," said David O'Rourke, senior manager, global IT, HomeAway. "We
have Polycom deployed across four continents and conduct
videoconferences every day. A key component of our video collaboration
strategy is the use of mobile devices like the iPad 2 or the new iPad to
increase the productivity of remote personnel, whether they are in their
living room, on the road or in a vacation rental property. Polycom has
made it all possible with secure and reliable HD video that enables our
distributed team to have face-to-face conversations from anywhere. We
can even show each other video of new properties in real time. Polycom's
platform is breaking down time and distance barriers and helping fuel
our growth by allowing our people to meet anywhere at any time."
When HomeAway first began using video conferencing, the company turned
to common consumer services. However, the company's business has grown
dramatically and HomeAway now has a customer base with listings that
span more than 168 countries, offering more than 640,000 vacation rental
homes across a portfolio of high-traffic websites such as HomeAway.com
and VRBO.com. As HomeAway grew, the company realized it needed a more
reliable, scalable, and secure video collaboration solution to bring
together employees in 20 different locations worldwide.
HomeAway chose the Polycom RealPresence Platform due to its robust
provisioning, management, scalability, reliability, and security. Built
on open standards, the RealPresence Platform interoperates with the
industry's broadest range of communications applications. This
interoperability protects customers' existing investments by ensuring
backwards- and forwards-compatibility with existing, as well as new and
future communication and collaboration systems. Because of Polycom's
focus on interoperability, the RealPresence Platform transforms islands
of employees and fragmented communications systems into a seamless video
enterprise, which makes enterprise-grade video easily and securely
accessible to all authorized personnel whether they're mobile, remote,
or on-site.
HomeAway's implementation also includes Polycom®
HDX® Series room telepresence systems featuring the Polycom®
EagleEye Director for immersive video collaboration as well as
Polycom's desktop and mobile offerings. Polycom®
RealPresence® Mobile, introduced in late 2011, extends the reach of
video collaboration beyond the office, enabling mobile employees to
participate in group or one-on-one video meetings on the device of their
choice. HomeAway is continuing to move aggressively to expand its use of
video collaboration on mobile devices and expects to have more than 250
Polycom-enabled mobile devices in use by the end of 2012.
The HomeAway staff uses Polycom for many aspects of internal
communications, from all-hands meetings to professional development. The
company has found that face-to-face interaction through rich video
communication is helping foster a culture of collaboration, innovation,
and streamlined decision making.
About Polycom
Polycom is the global leader in open standards-based unified
communications (UC) solutions for telepresence,
video,
and voice
powered by the Polycom® RealPresence®
Platform. The RealPresence Platform interoperates with the broadest
range of business, mobile, and social applications and devices. More
than 400,000 organizations trust Polycom solutions to collaborate and
meet face to face from any location for more productive and effective
engagement with colleagues, partners, customers, specialists, and
prospects. Polycom, together with its broad partner ecosystem, provides
customers with the best total cost of ownership, interoperability,
scalability, and security for video collaboration, whether on-premises,
hosted, or cloud delivered. Visit www.polycom.com
or connect with Polycom on Twitter,
Facebook,
and LinkedIn.
About HomeAway, Inc.
HomeAway, Inc., based in Austin, Texas, is the world's leading online
marketplace of vacation rentals, with sites representing more than
640,000 paid vacation rental home listings throughout 168 countries.
HomeAway® offers an extensive selection of vacation homes that provide
travelers with memorable experiences and benefits, especially more room
to relax, for less than the cost of traditional hotel accommodations.
The company also makes it easy for vacation rental owners and property
managers to advertise their properties and manage bookings online. The
HomeAway portfolio of websites includes HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and
VacationRentals.com in the United States; HomeAway.co.uk and
OwnersDirect.co.uk in the United Kingdom; HomeAway.de in Germany;
Abritel.fr and Homelidays.com in France; HomeAway.es, Toprural.com in
Spain; AlugueTemporada.com.br in Brazil; and HomeAway.com.au in
Australia.
In addition, HomeAway operates BedandBreakfast.com, the most
comprehensive global site for finding bed-and-breakfast properties,
providing travelers with another source for unique lodging alternatives
to chain hotels. For more information about HomeAway, please visit www.HomeAway.com.
© 2012 Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved. POLYCOM®, the Polycom
"Triangles" logo, and the names and marks associated with Polycom's
products are trademarks and/or service marks of Polycom, Inc. and are
registered and/or common law marks in the United States and various
other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective
owners.

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