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HP to sell Polycom portfolio globally

Tony Chan | March 29, 2010 | 0 Comments

Polycom announced an expanded global agreement where Polycom’s complete portfolio of voice and video conferencing technologies, including joint go-to-market activity and future technology development, will be sold by HP.

Under the expanded agreement, Polycom video and voice solutions for unified communications and stand-alone operation will be sold and delivered through HP as part of the company’s Unified Communications and Collaboration Services portfolio. This will enable organizations to leverage HP’s global presence for evaluating, designing, implementing and supporting communications systems that deliver a consistent, high-quality experience between all locations to ensure maximum benefits and rapid return on investment. The companies will also deliver interoperability between Polycom’s line of standards-based telepresence and video conferencing solutions and HP Halo telepresence.

“Adoption of visual communications is growing rapidly and teaming with HP will increase the global market presence for Polycom’s standards-based solutions that combine market-leading performance with flexibility and investment protection,” said Bob Hagerty, CEO of Polycom. “We are excited to expand our relationship with HP and to leverage the synergies with other Polycom Open Collaboration Network partners to deliver seamlessly interoperable UC solutions and services to customers.”

The agreement furthers existing relationships between both companies and unified communications providers such as Avaya and Microsoft. Specifically, it includes Polycom’s integrated voice and video solutions for Avaya and Microsoft UC environments, as well as an expanded portfolio of Polycom VoIP phones for Microsoft Communications Server “14″ also announced today.

“To address the challenges of operating globally, organizations are looking to visual and unified communications solutions to help them be more efficient, productive and competitive,” said Mark Golden, vice president, Network Services, HP. “With the addition of Polycom technologies to our portfolio, HP can provide clients around the world with a complete range of open voice and visual communication solutions that simplify business communications while speeding collaboration with clients and key partners.”

According to online reports, HP is also cutting its ties with former partner Tandberg, a key Polycom rival.

The announcement follows Cisco acquisition of Tandberg, also a global provider of video communications technologies and systems, and highlights an escalating competitive furor between Cisco and HP.

Last month, Cisco announced that it will no longer certify HP as a systems integrator, so HP will no longer be a certified Cisco partner.

In addition to the video communications and Telepresence space, the rivalry between HP and Cisco extends into the data centre computing infrastructure segment with the launch of Cisco’s Unified Computing System, which directly competes with HP’s servers.