TBS Dials Up Polycom Telepresence for Global Collaboration

Polycom (News - Alert) is making business travel decisions much easier for many companies these days. As budgets continue to stretch in a tightening economy, many are choosing the global leader’s telepresence, video and voice communications solutions as the next best thing to being there.

 

The Pleasanton, California-based company today announced that media giant Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS) has deployed Polycom telepresence solutions worldwide in an effort to improve collaboration among the many global network of TBS, Inc. brands.

 

The immersive, room and personal telepresence solutions from Polycom are expected to be used across business functions allowing TBS employees to work together more effectively and efficiently across distances.

 

"Polycom telepresence is helping us foster better daily collaboration between our globally dispersed brands and improving communication between TBS, Inc. and other Time Warner (News - Alert) operations," said Dan Darling, CIO, TBS, Inc. "The ability for people to work together face-to-face regardless of location is having a profound impact on the way and the speed at which we operate."

 

Darling noted the difficulties often facing TBS creative teams located in different parts of the county. In the past, TBS would send whole teams across the country for face-to-face sessions that can now be conducted through Polycom’s Hi-Def solutions.

 

For example, he notes, the company's Cartoon Network now uses the high-definition visual communication to bring its West Coast and East Coast creative centers closer together. The solution allows each to work more closely, collaborating face-to-face on a daily basis with immersive telepresence. Previously the company was forced to arrange costly monthly in-person meetings.

 

Polycom telepresence solutions are a key component the Polycom VC2 vision of video as a pervasive component of unified communication in the enterprise that enables groups of any size to communicate anywhere, anytime and from any device. Solutions under the Polycom VC2 vision provide the foundation for future, enhanced integration with Polycom strategic unified communications partners.

 

"Telepresence (News - Alert) is a strategic technology investment for our company that is being rapidly embraced by our employees," said Darling. "We selected Polycom for the quality of its immersive telepresence experience, the breadth of its portfolio and because Polycom telepresence systems interoperate seamlessly with existing standards-based video conferencing systems. This allows us to leverage our existing investments in video conferencing and easily connect with video conferencing systems at other Time Warner companies."

 

In addition to seeing each other and interacting naturally, the California, New York and Atlanta-based teams are able to share animation, video clips and other multimedia content in real time using the Polycom systems, according to Darling.

 

"The collaboration challenges TBS, Inc. faces as a globally dispersed organization are shared by companies of all sizes and across industries," said Robert Hagerty, chairman and CEO, Polycom. "TBS, Inc. is very progressive in integrating and embracing Polycom visual communication across its business. As a result, the company is already realizing substantial gains in collaboration and productivity, while at the same time reducing costs. TBS is a model for how forward-looking companies can use visual communication to help solve some of the real-world challenges of operating globally."

 

TBS had deployed Polycom RealPresence Experience (RPX) immersive telepresence solutions initially in its Atlanta and New York locations, and Burbank, Calif. is on deck.

 

The Atlanta-based company also initially deployed more than 100 Polycom HDX room and personal visual communication solutions across its global locations, along with Polycom visual communication infrastructure solutions for multi-party conferencing and video network provisioning and management.

Next up, TBS, Inc. is piloting Polycom's highly scalable, PC desktop video application, CMA Desktop(TM), to broaden access to visual communication and support corporate teleworking initiatives.

 

The Polycom telepresence solutions can support virtually any application, space and budget requirement with fully interoperable, standards-based solutions from personal telepresence at the desktop, according to the company.