Polycom Intros VVX 1500 D Business Media Phone

Polycom (News - Alert) today introduced the Polycom VVX 1500 D business media phone, the latest addition to its VVX 1500 solutions portfolio.


The new media phone is designed for large organizations with existing H.323 video deployments that are hedging their bets that video will be a standard feature of the enterprise UC platforms of the future.

The company claims the new phone is the industry's first “simultaneous dual-stack” (H.323 and SIP) device. Not only can it be seamlessly integrated with existing H.323 video networks -- thus enabling managers and knowledge workers to make instant, one-touch point to point and multipoint video calls to all other video systems -- it simultaneously supports the SIP signaling protocol, thus enabling integration with Polycom-certified, SIP-based UC platforms that provide advanced IP telephony capabilities. In mixed environments it will automatically select the appropriate protocol based on the capabilities and location of the destination device.

Polycom claims that by endowing the phone with H.323 and SIP dual stack support, it is providing a SIP-based UC endpoint that is “future-proof.”

Polycom's family of VVX 1500 business media phones – all of which combine voice and video and offer support for HD voice – offer an open application programming interface (API) and Web browser for real-time delivery of personalized Web content as well as integration with key business applications.

"The Polycom VVX 1500 family has been very well received in the market, in large part because it's so easy to use,” said Jim Kruger (News - Alert), vice president of marketing, Polycom Voice Communications Solutions, in a release. “We believe this simplicity and ease of use combined with the introduction of VVX 1500 models that fit within the diverse UC environments of our customers will help accelerate video adoption on a global scale."

Polycom also introduced two new desktop IP phones for audio only today – the Polycom SoundPoint IP 335, which the company claims brings HD voice to companies more affordably -- and the Polycom CX300, the newest addition to its CX product family optimized for Microsoft (News - Alert) Office Communications Server 2007 R2.