Could Polycom shake up videoconferencing?

Two-pronged attack aims to stir up SMB sales in a somewhat stale market

Polycom has been mixing and matching its videoconferencing wares, hoping that new combinations of hardware and software can shake up a struggling market for business collaboration systems.

Polycom this week announced virtualised and subscription-based offerings with flexible options and pricing that should help partners sell systems across a broader clientele, particularly SMBs often priced out of videoconferencing offerings from major vendors.

The down-market focus for Polycom hinges on hybrid and cloud versions of its RealPresence offerings, including the new RealPresence One as an annual subscription service.

The vendor is also rolling out a virtual version of its RealPresence Platform that can be loaded on industry-standard servers alongside or in lieu of hardware videoconferencing appliances for organisations that prefer a less onerous hybrid approach to collaboration.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Polycom this week also introduced a large, on-premises videoconferencing package called RealPresence Immersive Studio, which the company bills as "an ideal think-tank for meetings, creative brainstorms or crisis management sessions".

The room-sized system can handle up to 21 participants and features an 18-foot videowall with three 84-inch 1080p60 Ultra HD displays plus a dedicated 55-inch content display. The systems includes a content-sharing platform, simplified pairing with mobile devices and Polycom's proprietary 3D Voice processing.

While Polycom's two latest rollouts may seem incongruous, resellers here said that having a variety of offerings at different price points is key to success in what has become a tough selling space.

"Many people want to bring video collaboration into their organisations, but have put off doing so because of the cost of entry or limited configurations for setting it up," said Pepper Fernandez, CEO of Solutionz Conferencing, a Polycom partner in Brentwood, California.

"Polycom gives us the most complete, flexible portfolio in the industry, making it easy for us to help more organisations design custom enterprise-grade video collaboration solutions that best fits their budget and business goals. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach."

Polycom commands about 25 per cent of the videoconferencing and telepresence market, putting it in second place behind Cisco, which has roughly 45 per cent of the market according to IDC.

It's been a tough time for videoconferencing vendors and the partners that support them. The segment has seen double-digit drops in quarterly sales for most of the past year, with few bright spots on the horizon.

That hasn't soured everyone on the space, however.

"Video as a key component of collaboration continues to place high on the list of priorities for many organisations," said IDC analyst Petr Jirovsky, who tracks the videoconferencing market.

"Among the challenges customers are currently trying to work through are exactly when and how to provision their video deployments, as more software-centric solutions and video cloud service offerings become part of the enterprise video market landscape."

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