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Though IT insiders may argue about the affordability of higher-end video-based communications systems, few could disagree that innovations in areas such as telepresence mark a clear example of IP technology improving people’s lives.

 

Consider news coming out just this week from telepresence, video, and voice communications solutions provider Polycom, Inc. The Pleasanton, California-based company’s technology is helping underserved patients in the United States access healthcare and forms an important piece of a “virtual classroom” in Turkey that’s helping schoolchildren there share a science lesson, creating equal access to education.

 

As Polycom’s (News - Alert) director of product marketing, desktop and conferencing business, Tim Yankey, told TMC Group Managing Editor Erik Linask in a recent interview at ITEXPO East, the company’s theme for this year is “Communications for the way you work,” with tenets that include intimacy, immediacy and customized solutions.

 

In this down economy, customized solutions also allow businesses to leverage their existing assets and ensure scalability, so that investments down the road will be minimal – also known as “future-proofing.”

 

That’s what makes an announcement from Polycom today so timely.

 

The company – whose flagship products include trademark HD voice technology – is launching new capabilities for its immersive telepresence solutions that allow customers to support deployments with in-house resources or through partial or complete outsourced services.

 

According to Geno Alissi, senior vice president and general manager of Polycom’s service division, interest in telepresence is growing, as companies seek to transform their organizations with better, faster, and smarter collaboration across distances.

 

“Telepresence (News - Alert) deployments are reaching small and large organizations alike, each of which has unique infrastructure and IT resource capabilities and requirements,” Alissi said. “By providing greater flexibility and choice through our expanded service options and new self-service capabilities in our systems, Polycom and its certified telepresence partners can address the specific needs of a broader range of customers.”

 

Specifically, the company is offering a new so-called “Assisted Operations Service” in addition to its existing fully managed Video Network Operations Center service. With AOS, company officials say, a customer’s in-house IT or video operations team manages immersive telepresence scheduling, conference management, and reporting. An external certified Polycom service provider partner provides around-the-clock remote system monitoring and streamlined fault management to maximize solution availability.

 

The company also is expanding its so-called “Polycom RealPresence Experience” and “Polycom Telepresence Experience” telepresence solutions with Single Touch Multipoint, which allows users to initiate calls among multiple locations simply by touching a single button on the RPX and TPX touch-screen executive control panel. By doing so, users can join a meeting quickly and easily, and the system itself connects the call and determines how sites appear based on automatic, optimized layout views or administrator-configured custom layouts.

 

Importantly, the Single Touch feature reduces the need for assistance in initiating telepresence calls that include multiple sites and calls with different types of telepresence and video conferencing systems.

 

Analysts are hailing the new Polycom telepresence features for bringing more flexibility to organizations.

 

Andrew W. Davis, a senior analyst and founding partner of Wainhouse Research, said that no single approach is going to meet the needs of all customers, and Polycom is addressing that issue by allowing its partners to deliver telepresence as a fully managed service, a partially managed service to complement customer in-house IT capabilities, or as a customer-managed solution.

 

“Combined with the breadth of its solution portfolio and significant installed base, Polycom is well-positioned in the telepresence market,” Davis said.