Polycom, Inc., the global standards-based unified communications (UC), has detailed its strategy to enable service providers to offer cloud-delivered, Video-as-a-Service (VaaS) solutions to its customers. As part of this announcement, Polycom is unveiling Polycom RealPresence Cloud, a wholesale, carrier-ready offering to enable service providers to quickly bring to market VaaS offerings. RealPresence Cloud solutions are designed specifically for service providers to equip them with the carrier-grade infrastructure, endpoints and services they need to offer businesses of all sizes subscription-based solutions for video collaboration. The new offering for service providers is designed to accelerate the penetration and adoption of Polycom video collaboration solutions among SMEs (small to medium sized enterprises) and enterprises who want either a hybrid solution of both premises-based video collaboration solutions and video on demand, or a pure VaaS solution.
Polycom RealPresence Cloud solutions compress the time-to-market and time-to-revenue for service providers to deliver VaaS solutions. Powered by the Polycom RealPresence Platform, the most complete and interoperable solution for universal video collaboration, RealPresence Cloud provides the carrier-grade scalability, reliability, availability and security required for service providers to offer VaaS to SMEs and enterprises. RealPresence Cloud solutions encompass a fully managed multipoint video service that supports a multitude of connectivity options between standards-based room, mobile, PC and Web-based endpoints, as well as Microsoft Lync 2010, IBM Sametime and endpoints supporting the non-standard TIP protocol. Service providers can leverage Polycom RealPresence Cloud solutions to offer their customers a true business-to-business VaaS solution without having to fully integrate and support the core infrastructure on-premises. This solution leverages the Polycom RealPresence Network (formerly the Halo/HVEN network acquired from HP in 2011) to allow service providers to fast-track their capability to deliver video from the cloud.
“Polycom RealPresence Cloud is a key component to our vision of making video collaboration ubiquitous. Service providers are critical partners to drive video collaboration growth through VaaS offerings, which will dramatically lower the up-front investment for SMEs and enterprises, enabling them to reap the benefits of video collaboration,” said Andy Miller, President and CEO, Polycom.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for service providers to augment their existing offerings with video collaboration solutions. To that end, we’re removing the barriers to entry with our wholesale cloud offerings and other delivery options that meet service provider requirements related to investment, management and operations, thereby enabling our partners to get to market faster and generate new revenue more quickly. Our go-to-market objective is clear: we will be an enabler of cloud services, partnering with service providers and, in-time, solutions providers and unlike competitors, we will not compete with service providers or offer a retail service direct to end users,” said Miller.