We have a very exciting and busy time coming up as Polycom will be joining Microsoft at their annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), July 10-14 in Toronto, Canada. This is a great opportunity for those attending, and particularly for our Microsoft partners who will be looking for new revenue streams with our Polycom voice and video solutions. 

Partners can visit our booth #643 to learn more about Polycom’s strong partnership and interoperability with Microsoft, Office 365 and Skype for Business. The Polycom Partner team will be onsite to discuss and demonstrate how our products complete the end-to-end collaboration story and drive new revenue streams for our partners.

It’s simple…our certified solutions for Skype for Business and Office 365 easily light up our customers licenses so that they achieve rapid adoption and utilization, which assures that return on investment and higher levels of productivity that our customers seek. In turn, Microsoft partners are able to engage with customers deploying their own valuable skills and services that they have gained through their Microsoft competencies. 

We want to illustrate how Microsoft partners can engage with Polycom to be part of this huge go to market that we have with Microsoft. The breadth and depth of solutions for Office 365 and Skype for Business that we at Polycom have results in this relationship.  As a result, we create a long term, valued partnership with our customer and so can our partners. 

As I say it’s simple……. what’s not to like?

At our booth, the solutions demonstrations will include:

• The world’s first business media conferencing solution for Office 365 – Polycom® RealPresence Trio™ 
• Polycom and Microsoft extend video collaboration to Office 365 – Polycom® Group Series
• The first business media phones for the new Office 365 services – Polycom® VVX® phones
• Simple and powerful collaboration software that drives Skype for Business video interoperability – Polycom® RealConnect

So how can partners engage at WPC 2016?

You can join Polycom for a booth tour at booth 643 and be entered for a chance to win a Polycom® RealPresence Trio ™.

Check out the WPC page on Polycom’s website >>

Sign up for a booth tour >>

Meet one-on-one with a member of our Polycom Partner team to explore partnership opportunities partner executive one to one

The countdown to Microsoft World Partner Conference 2015 has started. If you happen to be in Orlando on 12-16 July and want a piece of the Smart City buzz, the two exhibition areas you should not miss are Microsoft CityNext and Polycom (booth #1501). Here is why… 

Cities face new challenges ahead. 

By 2050, 70% of the world’s population will live in cities*, representing an additional 2.7 billion people in the world’s urban areas. How can city leaders prepare for this influx of migrants in light of today’s challenges: aging infrastructure, tighter budgets, cyber-security threats, urbanization and the pervasive use of mobile and social technologies by citizens?

Government leaders have the power to shape the city of the future. Information and communication technology enables cities to innovate, collaborate and prosper by connecting constituents with the next-generation of public services, with the goal of improving satisfaction, increasing efficiencies and reducing costs. 

Failing to properly deploy innovative solutions to mitigate the population density of cities would result in additional labour, traffic, environmental and security challenges. In this blog, I am sharing how Microsoft unified communications and Polycom collaboration solutions empower citizens, businesses and governments to transform the way people live, learn and work. You can also watch the video interview available further below to know more.

The Smart City race is on and the opportunity is big.

According to Forbes, urbanization has become so important that it has elevated some cities to be even more important than the countries themselves contributing substantially to the country’s GDP. Top of the Forbes list was New York City, which has initiated smart and sustainable initiatives such as City 24/7, an interactive platform that integrates information from government programmes, local businesses, and the city’s citizens to provide knowledge to anyone, anywhere, anytime, and on any device. Barcelona and Santander in Spain and Amsterdam have been cited as some examples of smart cities which have already begun wiring up and connecting themselves to drive better efficiency and benefits for citizens.

The Government of India has announced an ambitious 100 Smart Cities programme where State capitals as well as many tourist and heritage cities are expected to witness a rapid upgrade of urban infrastructure and online services to citizens, enabled by Information Technology. Singapore remains committed to becoming the world’s first Smart Nation that taps on ICT to better serve citizens, which will set it apart from the many Smart Cities that are already developing globally. The global race to become the Smartest City is definitely on and the business opportunity for technology vendors and integrators is tremendous.

According to Frost & Sullivan search, the Smart City market represents a USD 1.5 Trillion business opportunity globally in segments of energy, transportation, healthcare, building, infrastructure, and governance. Polycom and Microsoft are two Smart City market participants that partner with cities to address various challenges through the use of unified communication and collaboration technology.

Polycom Solutions for Microsoft CityNext: Better together!

Microsoft CityNext empowers governments, businesses, and citizens to create more sustainable, prosperous, and economically competitive cities. Broadening the city innovation conversation beyond infrastructure alone, Microsoft CityNext helps city leaders unlock the most important resource of any city—the potential of its people—by delivering citizen-centric services to help them lead safer and healthier lives and have access to quality education.

Polycom provides the most comprehensive and complete solutions for Microsoft unified communications, including voice, conferencing, and video collaboration solutions. Polycom collaboration solutions integrate seamlessly to enhance productivity along with Microsoft applications. Thus, together, we are enabling cities to provide services that put people first by designing around their needs to serve them better. 

• Modern Cities – Microsoft & Polycom enable real-time, equitable and sustainable access to government information, services and city resources. Allowing city employees do their jobs better, citizens to leverage services more effectively and businesses to succeed more quickly.

• Safer Cities – Microsoft & Polycom empower justice, enforcement and defense agencies to be better prepared and respond faster to threat, disaster or emergency in their communities. Protecting the way-of-life that citizens and leaders have worked hard to establish

• Healthier Cities – Microsoft & Polycom help cities to transform healthcare models and provide collaborative care from anywhere to anyone affordably. Offering patients, providers and payers a sustainable model and better outcomes for all.

• Educated Cities – Microsoft & Polycom provide rich, interactive learning experiences that improve knowledge retention and increase productivity of every learner, teacher and instructor.

By adopting a modernization approach that works today and is sustainable into the future, government leaders can transform their cities into vibrant hubs that attract a skilled population and inbound investment to drive the city’s economy— thereby, becoming more competitive in the global economy.

Partnering to build The City of the Future

The Mega Trend of Smart Cities is set to drive urban development for the next decade and will drive demand for response, storage, multi-energy networks, smart devices, and new business models (Telehealth, Distance Learning, Next-gen Citizen and Emergency Services…) leveraging unified communication and collaboration solutions. As a Microsoft and/or Polycom Partner, you should be at the forefront of this change helping to build the City of the Future, which is more modern yet sustainable, educated, safer and healthier for all.

Visit us at WPC 2015

If you happen to be at WPC, please visit the Polycom Booth #1501. Ask for my colleagues, Andrew Graley or Robert Birch who will share with you how we can work together to address this market opportunity. You can also contact us to know more about Polycom Solutions for Microsoft CityNext: industry.solutions@polycom.com

* The World Health Organization, in their World Urbanization Prospects report for 2014.

Each year, Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference brings together over 10,000 of some of the brightest minds in the technology industry. All partners of Microsoft, all working together to make business more efficient, more intuitive and even more fun.

Last week was no different. Polycom has been privileged to be a partner of Microsoft for over a decade. Constantly working together to improve efficiencies and generate productivity in the workplace, Polycom and Microsoft have developed solutions that are built and qualified in the Lync environment.  In fact, our work with Microsoft, which includes our CX8000, a Lync Room System, has played a big role in Polycom gaining the highest rating by Gartner for Group Video Systems.

What we had in the booth

Polycom was once again a proud sponsor of the event.

The main element of our booth display was the CX8000 Lync Room System and CX5100 – our unique, center-of-the-table 360-degree HD voice and video device for Lync. Many who came to our booth mentioned that they were using the original roundtable, the CX5000 and were eager to upgrade to the new and improved HD solution.

As usual, our VVX phones generated much interest as many inquired about the different functionality of the devices – from our VVX300 (an entry level HD voice quality device) to the VVX600 (multiple features that include video, HD voice and an instant access directory).

Meeting capture – particularly for training or new hire videos – and ability to access and dissect transcripts for key messages were the two most favorably received applications of our Video Content Management solution.

Cloud party a big hit:

In partnership with Plantronics and Sonus, Polycom sponsored an event on the roof deck of the W Hotel in Washington.  We were pleased and honored to have more than 500 attendees attend, including influential Microsoft Partners, as well as Lync Marketing, Engineers and Sales Teams from Microsoft as well as members of the media as well.

Generating a movement:

 Polycom is proud to be joining Microsoft on two programs that are truly remarkable:

• Operation Smile –  A charity designed to help children around the world who have facial abnormalities, Polycom is working in conjunction with Microsoft to offer support for this cause
• CityNext – Polycom has been accepted into Microsoft’s CityNext program, which is designed to positively impact cities and communities through the use of technology

The Polycom and Microsoft partnership continues to be an important one for businesses everywhere. We’ve been honored to collaborate with Microsoft to address key business challenges along the way.

And stay tuned. Microsoft and Polycom have more coming!