Polycom, the
video collaboration technology vendor that last year made a strategic shift
toward a more software-centric approach, is taking what officials are calling
the next key step by having its RealPresence Mobile application shipping
preloaded on the new Motorola Droid Xyboard tablet.
Polycom
officials said the RealPresence Mobile software will be demonstrated this week
in the Motorola booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The demand for
video collaboration technology continues to rise rapidly as businesses look for
ways to reduce costs—including travel expenses—increase employee productivity
and open up new ways to communicate with workers, partners and customers. Now,
much of that effort is moving onto mobile devices, particularly, with the BYOD
(bring your own device) trend at businesses.
At the CTIA
show last year, Polycom and its competitors, including Cisco Systems, ShoreTel
and Vidyo, took steps to make their unified communications and video
collaboration technologies available on Apple and Google Android-based tablets
and smartphones.
For its part,
Polycom in October made its RealPresence software available as an application
on Apple’s iPad and Android-based tablets from Motorola and Samsung.
Essentially, the application, which is available from the Apple App Store and
Android Market, lets Polycom users communicate with any other standards-based
video communication device. It supports up to 75,000 devices and 25,000
concurrent sessions, and can be used as an on-premises solution or accessed via
the cloud. Mobile workers can participate in corporate high-definition videoconferences
through their tablets with colleagues who are using everything from tablets to
immersive video room systems.
Surendra
Arora, vice president of business development for Polycom, said customers are
continuously telling him and other company officials that they want to move in
this direction.
“Almost every
company we have sold into has said, ‘Let’s do [mobile video communication] with
either an Android tablet or an iPad,” Arora said in an interview with eWEEK. “The customization of IT is upon
us.”
Users seem to
be embracing it, he said. In just over two months, the RealPresence application
has been downloaded more than 25,000 times.
Now Polycom’s
technology is a standard feature on the Xyboard, a 10.1 Android-based tablet
from Motorola that went on sale Dec. 12. Becoming a standard feature on every
Xyboard sold is further validation of Polycom’s software strategy, Arora said.
He also said it highlights a key differentiation between the directions Polycom
and Cisco are traveling. Cisco offers a number of mobile video collaboration
solutions for third-party systems makers, but also has invested in developing
its own Android business tablet, the Cius.
Polycom, on
the other hand, sells its own video collaboration hardware—and last year bought Hewlett-Packard’s video communication products—for
offices and conference rooms, but for the mobile world, has decided instead to
focus solely on partnering with the likes of Apple, Motorola and Samsung, Arora
said.
“Software is
where we think we can create” clear differentiation from Cisco and others, he
said. “Cisco’s kind of looking at the same thing and acknowledging that this is
the way to do it.”
Polycom has
ensured that its RealPresence technology can be easily used by workers on
mobile devices, requiring nothing more than a user name and password, Arora
said. “We want to make videoconferencing as easy as email,” he said.
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