Video Conferencing Industry is Strong: Polycom

Officials from a Pleasanton, Calif.-based provider of telepresence, video and voice communication solutions, said today the video conferencing industry is robust and painted a bright outlook for the near future.

 

Those were the topline comments from Polycom, Inc. officials during an analyst and investor event today at the firm’s executive briefing centers in New York and Santa Clara, Calif. Chairman and CEO Robert Hagerty, Michael Kourey (News - Alert), Polycom’s chief financial officer and Andrew Miller, the company’s executive vice president, global field operations, met with other members of Polycom's (News - Alert) management to discuss the firm’s operations.

 

During the event, Polycom executives said the video conferencing industry is strong, thanks to increased interest from companies looking to reduce travel. Specifically, Polycom officials said its video conferencing and telepresence solutions – both endpoint and infrastructure – are growing this year, despite the weak economy.

 

“It’s a great market,” Hagerty said during a live Webcast just moments ago. “Polycom has a strong position in it.”

 

And the market is only projected to grow. According to projections from The Yankee Group (News - Alert), video conferencing will replace 2.1 million airline seats by 2012, Hagerty said. That helps supports the notion that telepresence and video conferencing is becoming a “major tool” in the unified communications space, he said.

 

Hagerty touched on the potential impact that Cisco’s proposed acquisition of video conferencing gear maker TANDBERG could have on the company. Overall, Polycom officials welcome the competition. Hagerty said the proposed merger of the two companies would “create more opportunity” for service providers.

 

In addition, Hagerty said the proposed deal by the world’s largest maker of computer networking gear “validates our mission.” It reinforces the fact that telepresence and video conferencing technology has moved from a nice-to-have technology to a “must-have technology,” he said.

 

“We have a great roadmap,” Hagerty said. “Our opportunity is to show our forward approach.”

 

A live Webcast of the event is available on Polycom’s Web site.

 

Cisco (News - Alert) this week has upped its bid for TANDBERG by about $400 million. The company is now offering $3.4 million for TANDBERG. With the acquisition, Cisco said it wants to integrate TANDBERG’s video endpoints and network infrastructure solution into its collaboration architecture, allowing intercompany and multi-vendor interoperability across its product portfolio. Cisco officials said the acquisition would help strengthen the company’s position in the $34 million collaboration market and expand its presence as a player in the videoconferencing sector.

 

Such an acquisition would open up the mainstream market to Cisco, which would go head-to-head with Polycom. TANDBERG represents 40 percent of the video conference market, where as Polycom represents 34 percent, according to Wainhouse (News - Alert) Research.