Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Siemens Enterprise Communications has formed a unified communications partnership with Polycom - a move likely made in response to UC competitor Cisco's acquisition of Tandberg.
Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group*) and Polycom have announced a strategic alliance and global resale agreement that, they say "will enable customers to leverage the productivity and cost-saving benefits of Polycom telepresence, high definition (HD) videoconferencing solutions and desktop video collaboration applications through seamless integration with the OpenScape UC environment."
Under the global resale agreement, SEN Group will offer Polycom's portfolio of visual communication systems, including personal, room and immersive telepresence products, videoconferencing systems, and desktop video collaboration applications, supported by Polycom infrastructure platform that provides centralised management and provisioning; multi-site, multi-network conferencing capabilities; network-aware firewall traversal; recording, streaming and video content management; and interoperability with other standards-based telepresence systems and legacy video conferencing equipment.
Polycom RMX series conference bridges and HDX video endpoints will integrate with the OpenScape unified communications server. The SEN Group will also offer customers Polycom visual communication solutions supported by its OpenScale Services, a portfolio of professional and managed services and will offer 24x7 network and device monitoring from its global video network operations centre.
Polycom and Tandberg between them dominate the high end videoconferencing market and with video becoming a key component of enterprise communications, integration with existing enterprise UC systems is becoming essential. Tandberg, however, is being acquired by leading UC player Cisco.
There have been different interpretations on what this means for Polycom. On the one hand, it has been suggested that Polycom needs to be acquired by a large UC player in order to survive, with Avaya flagged as the most likely candidate.
On the other hand, it has been suggested that, with Tandberg no longer independent, Polycom is well place to strike alliances with every other major UC player needing to incorporate video communications into its portfolio.
Michael Chetner, country manager for Polycom in Australia, told iTWire: "For Siemens customers in Australia, this partnership ensures that their existing UC investments are protected. This announcement also reinforces the momentum and excitement that is building around UC, which is why Polycom continues to forge closer relationships with key vendors, service providers and channel partners in this space – and why we see video will go mainstream in two to three years."
* SEN Group is now a completely separate entity from Siemens AG. It is jointly owned by Siemens AG and the Gores Group and includes Siemens Enterprise Communications, Cycos and Enterasys Networks.
David Bass
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