Recently, Microsoft and Polycom, Inc announced an exciting new development for companies that use Skype for business. The two brands have joined together to expand the current user experience for Skype for Business into a new collection of video and voice services.
Polycom have been involved in a 12-year partnership with Microsoft – a collaboration that led to the delivery of more deeply integrated video and voice solutions for Skype for Office 365 and business than any other professional relationship. This range of solutions have helped IT leaders to address the growing needs of their customer base, while achieving essential cost savings, incremental revenue, and higher productivity.
Now, the evolution is moving even further with the introduction of Polycom’s new Skype Room System: “The Polycom MSR Series” (Originally marketed as Project Rigel). This new service for Office 365 will help to connect video endpoints to Skype for easy video calls within Office 365, while the MSR series extends familiar Skype solutions into any sized conference room, with rich HD video and audio.
Upgrading the Business Call Experience
Polycom will finally be delivering its previously announced service for video interoperability: RealConnectTM, for operation with Office 365. The cloud-based solution will allow Skype users in Office 365 to host inter-network meetings with non-Skype for Business-based endpoints. In other words, more people than ever before can join in with your meetings!
As companies across the globe move more eagerly into Office 365, many will be searching for simple solutions to help their systems work more seamlessly together. The new solution from Polycom will offer similar capabilities to the Polycom RealConnect TM solution, at an expanded level.
At the same time, Polycom will be improving and upgrading the standard Skype for Business experience for meetings with the new Microsoft Skype Room System, or the “MSR Series”. The MSR series offered by Polycom will bring the meeting experience delivered by Skype for Business into any and every meeting room. What’s more, Customers can bundle the MSR series with powerful solutions for video and audio, such as the Polycom CX5100 United Conference Station, Polycom RealPresence Trio and Polycom RealPresence Medialign.
All of these applications, which are suitable for both small and larger conference room settings alike – will be available from the first quarter of 2017.
An Exciting Step for Polycom and Microsoft
In reference to the new developments, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Zig Serafin said that, up until this point, the long-standing relationship that the brand has held with Polycom has been successful for everyone involved. Microsoft believe that the developments made by Polycom will help to ensure that end-users “will have a seamless Skype for Business experience anywhere, on any device, and now in every meeting room.”
Polycom’s Senior Vice President of product management and Worldwide Systems Engineering, Ashan Willy said: “Simple and familiar are they key ingredients to a successful collaboration deployment.” He noted that Polycom and Microsoft would continue to focus on offering Office 365 and Skype for Business users a complete portfolio of easy-use services and products that can be used by businesses of all shapes and sizes.
