Polycom, Meetrix Partner for Cloud-Based Social Video Collaboration

At the IBM Connect 2013 conference, Polycom and Meetrix announced a partnership to deliver an IBM Sametime as a Service offering for social video collaboration.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Polycom, a provider of open-standards-based unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), and Meetrix, a cloud enabler and integrator, announced a partnership to integrate their respective solutions to offer customers cloud-delivered social video collaboration services.

The partnership integrates Meetrix's unified communications cloud service for IBM Sametime and Polycom's video infrastructure software—either on-premises or cloud-delivered from a service provider—to help customers securely and reliably connect, communicate and collaborate visually through their cloud-delivered social business app. The companies announced the partnership at the IBM Connect 2013 show here.

Meetrix's flagship offering, Meetrix UC in the Cloud for IBM Sametime, delivers "Sametime as a Service," the company said. This is a service that manages the IBM Sametime solution for customers from the cloud. Meetrix UC in the Cloud for IBM Sametime can be deployed in hours for small and midsize businesses or, in the case of larger enterprises, a few days, giving customers instant access to the benefits of IBM Sametime, the company said.

The Polycom RealPresence Platform software infrastructure for universal video collaboration enriches the social collaboration experience by allowing IBM Sametime and IBM Connections users to collaborate in secure multi-party or point-to-point video calls. The RealPresence Platform software infrastructure, whether installed on-premises or delivered as a service from the cloud, connects users across any environment—immersive video suites, conference rooms, work and home offices, and smartphones, laptops and tablets, Polycom said.

"We've offered integration with IBM Sametime for years, but as more customers—especially small and midsized companies—explore cloud strategies, we're excited to partner with Meetrix, a real innovator in this space," Steve Pattison, vice president of business development at Polycom, said in a statement. "The Meetrix UC in the Cloud for IBM Sametime service allows customers to deploy IBM Sametime almost instantly, and when you integrate Polycom RealPresence video solutions into the social business environment, customers can keep their up-front costs down, leverage their existing investments and quickly realize a return on their investment from the increased productivity of face-to-face collaboration."

Lee Fawcett, CEO of Meetrix, said in a statement that "enterprise-class UC delivered from the cloud is needed, and our joint solution, whether the video infrastructure is on-premises or delivered from the cloud, offers the best-in-class UC and video solution-set available today."

The offering is available globally for existing Polycom RealPresence Platform and Meetrix UC in the Cloud for IBM Sametime customers at no additional integration or application cost.