Consumer-Grade Video Isn’t Good Enough for Business Communications

[Brian Phillips (Brian_Phillips)]

Most of us have used video in our personal lives to keep better connected with family and friends in far-flung places.  It’s generally a good experience, even when using free apps that you can download or that come pre-installed on your mobile device.  Most users of video conferencing in a business setting understand that meeting rooms have different needs – simply putting a webcam on your laptop and hoping to deliver a productive video meeting in a conference room is an exercise in frustration.  One of the benefits of having so much exposure to consumer video experiences is that it has driven more awareness of what is needed to make video more pervasive in the workplace.   

Smaller meeting rooms are frequently trying to get by on consumer-grade video due to lack of affordable alternatives that deliver significantly better experiences.  However, getting by gets a lot tougher when the audio drops out or sounds tinny, or the video freezes up and loses lip sync. We can live with these compromises when chatting with Grandma, but it’s unacceptable during business conversations.

That’s where Polycom® RealPresence Debut™ comes in.  It’s designed around simplicity.  With an all-in-one design that sits right atop your monitor, it’s simple to set up and has just two cables to connect.  It’s also simple to configure, whether you’re using it with the Polycom RealPresence Platform or with RealPresence Cloud video services from one of our partners.  And, of course, it’s simple to use with an intuitive design that doesn’t require an engineering degree to figure out.

Simplicity can’t come at the expense of performance.  Enterprise-grade experiences are a must from any Polycom solution.  In RealPresence Debut, this means full 1080p HD video and content sharing, and top-end audio experiences you’ve come to expect from Polycom.  We’ve included innovations that are unique to the Polycom experience, such as NoiseBlock to keep out distracting background noises.  Business conversations are too important to sacrifice to your network gremlins, so we also brought over features such as Polycom Lost Packet Recovery (LPR) technology to make sure you are always seen and heard.  Features like this separate Polycom’s enterprise-grade solutions from consumer-grade alternatives, and it makes all the difference when you need high quality, reliable communications.

We’re delivering this all in a package that is right-sized for these smaller rooms – not just in features, but in price.  With a list price of $1,999, we’re confident RealPresence Debut will bring enterprise-grade video experiences within reach of customers who just hadn’t considered it in the past.

So keep an eye out. We’re accepting orders starting this November and  we’re excited to hear your feedback.

Additional Resources:

Read the press release