Siris to Buy Polycom

Polycom Inc. started off July with a bang when it announced that it is curtailing its deal to be bought by Mitel Networks Corp. and has cut a more preferable deal with Siris Capital. Mitel, which bowed out of its earlier announced deal to buy Polycom, had planned to pay about $1.96 billion for the video solutions provider. Private equity firm Siris Capital intends to pay about $2 billion for Polycom. “The industry is transitioning to a hybrid on-premise[s] and cloud-based unified communications environment,” noted Dan Moloney, Siris executive partner. “We believe that as an independent private company, Polycom would be best positioned to continue its heritage as a best-in-class communications solutions provider to more than 400,000 companies and institutions, channel partners, and the evolving unified communications ecosystem.”

CAYIN Unveils New Releases

Taiwanese digital signage company CAYIN Technology has launched new versions of its solutions. SMP-NEO2 is a new software from the company that is leaner and lighter than the previous iteration, and that offers new security features. CAYIN’s SMP-2100 is a metal-build player with two HDMI outputs.

Toshiba Offers New Recording Solution for Customers, Resellers

Toshiba Surveillance and IP Video Products, a business unit of Toshiba America Information Systems, has launched a new cloud-based NVR recording platform that records locally. “This product has been built from the ground up with two main purposes in mind: providing end user customers with increased ease of use and ongoing system management and providing our reseller partners with increased profitability while creating or enhancing recurring revenue opportunities for them,” said Greg Hartzell, director of Toshiba’s surveillance division. The solution’s single universal sign-on allows users to access their recorders from anywhere with almost any device (PC, phone, tablet) by entering a single user name and password. 

Lifesize Tells Of Its Spinoff Success

Lifesize more than six months ago was spun off from Logitech. The company’s CEO Craig Malloy has been offering updates on the momentum and customer growth it’s seen recently.

IDC: Videoconferencing Up Annually, Down for 1Q2016

Overall videoconferencing equipment revenue decreased 21.1 percent between the first quarter of this year and the last quarter of 2015, according to IDC. Total worldwide enterprise video equipment revenue in the first quarter of this year was more than $495 million, down from about $628 million. But it has seen an increase of 2.3 percent year over year. "The quarterly declines are mainly due to the usual seasonality, with the first quarter pretty much always the weakest of the year, and the fourth quarter usually the strongest,” said Rich Costello of IDC. “So the market is not doing as bad as the quarterly numbers might indicate."

MUSC Makes Epic Move

Medical University of South Carolina has simplified access to high quality remote consultations between clinicians and patients by deploying Epic’s telehealth and virtual care workflows integrated with Vidyo’s (News - Alert) real-time video communication platform. Dr. James T. McElligott, medical director for Telehealth at MUSC, commented: “Vidyo allows for our providers to access care from a wide variety of locations and the level of integration with our Epic system on mobile and desktop applications is necessary to make workflows seamless across the continuum of care.”

Mobile, Broadcast Group Launched by ETSI

ETSI has a new initiative called the Mobile and Broadcast Convergence (News - Alert) ISG. It explore the deployment and business models of converged networks from the perspectives of broadcasters, satellite, mobile and terrestrial broadcast network operators, content owners and providers, network infrastructure vendors and manufacturers of consumer equipment and consumers. “Increasingly consumers are using Smartphones and tablets to access linear and non-linear content interchangeably and the old model of a screen in the living room to watch TV broadcasting is becoming more and more irrelevant. Broadcasters and mobile operators will have to adapt their business models to these changed bandwidth flows and there is uncertainty about the optimum technology choices. This ISG is to allow all interested parties to engage with the technical debate now, ahead of whatever standardization work will be needed subsequently,” said David Hendon, convenor of the MBC ISG.

IBM Helps Enterprise Networks Cope with Video Traffic

IBM has introduced Ustream eCDN. This new service entails the installation of a virtual server within a company’s firewall. Once that’s done, eCDN delivers a single instance of a live or on-demand video asset that is cached and served to viewers as needed. By delivering video as a single instance, Ustream eCDN lowers the impact of video traffic on the larger enterprise network. The New York State Senate is among the first users of Ustream eCDN.

Google Intros Duo

There’s a new video calling app available for Android (News - Alert) and iOS, and it’s called Google Duo. To use it, people need only a phone number, but need not create a new account. Google Duo’s Knock Knock enables user to see a live video of the caller before they pick up.

Walt Disney Co. Grabs BAMTech

Video streaming company BAMTech has garnered an investment from The Walt Disney Co. For $2 billion, half now, half in January of next year, the company get a 33 percent stake in the business. “Our investment in BAMTech gives us the technology infrastructure we need to quickly scale and monetize our streaming capabilities at ESPN (News - Alert) and across our company,” said Robert A. Iger, chairman and CEO at The Walt Disney Co.

Cisco Powers Level 3 NaaS

Level 3 Communications (News - Alert) has tapped Cisco to provide its Network Services Orchestrator, enabled by Tail-f. The supplier’s technology will support the service provider’s Adaptive Network Control Solutions suite, which features network automation and leverages software-defined networking. Travis Ewert, senior vice president of network software development at Level 3, commented: “Global businesses need network resources that are flexible enough to be leveraged as a service, with the reliability and security they can rely on to deliver critical business applications. With Cisco NSO, Level 3 is making the once-distant dream of full lifecycle service automation a reality for enterprises around the world."