Polycoms products and its EMEA operations

Steve: Polycom remains committed to raising the quality bar and expanding the attractiveness of collaborative applications to all business types and 2007 has shown further fruit to this endeavour.

We have expanded the range of HD products, with the introduction of the HDX4000^TM and HDX8000^TM, so that users can now experience industry leading voice and video performance anywhere from the boardroom to the desktop in their home office, and all points in between.

We introduced at the pinnacle of the portfolio, the RPX range of product, which deliver the Real Presence Experiences, the most natural, lifelike and immersive conferencing experience available anywhere, and then followed up later in the year with the TPX, which allows those companies who cannot have RPX everywhere, to have a Telepresence (not Real presence) experience instead.

We introduced an array of voice products also, which allows people to start their collaboration over distance experience with just voice, and expand to video at some later stage when budget and bandwidth are in place.

We also provided the ability to scale your collaborative applications, to multiple HD systems via the RMX 2000 Bridge, to make the applications more accessible via the recording and streaming engines such as RSS 2000^TM and VMC 1000.

In summary it has been another great year of innovation from Polycom and it is pleasing to see so many of the products working together in concert, and starting to deliver on the promise of unified, compatible, voice, video and data applications.

Editor: Has Polycom found an interest in Telepresence in the Europe and Middle East markets? What type of user is buying Telepresence?

Steve: The Real Presence Experience^TM (RPX) and more recently the Telepresence Experience (TPX) product have been a real marketing bonus for Polycom. They have generated huge interest in the whole application space, and at a level on client organisation that we never had easy access to before. The type of client who is most interested are those large companies, with a multi national spread, who are in some of the fastest moving and innovative sectors, such as media, finance and pharmaceuticals.

Editor: Is Europe well advanced in adopting High Definition for videoconferencing? Or is the switch to viewing HD rather slower than expected?

Steve: The EMEA market place is showing a good level of interest and adoption of the new HD products. The switch to HD is as expected for Polycom, as the power of the VSX (non HD) systems in our portfolio remains very attractive and they continue to be the budget friendly, bandwidth friendly solution choice for many of our customers. The fact that they work really well with our HD systems, and can increase their resolution to a level beyond normal conferencing systems when they meet an HDX in a call is a real bonus for Polycom users.

Editor: What has Polycom done to educate the European market of the advantages of Polycom HD videoconferencing and have (a) existing customers and (b) first time users preferred the Polycom HD-ready offerings in 2007?

Steve: We have had an extensive program of events throughout 2007 where we have demonstrated the Polycom UltimateHD offerings and it has been heartening to see the very rapid take up of demonstration equipment by the family of Polycom Certified partners. The dissemination of the messages and the ability for current users and people new to the application space to experience the power of the Polycom solution has been greatly increased. The press coverage we have enjoyed with the level of innovation in 2007 has also allowed us to communicate with a large number of people who have not considered unified collaboration solutions before.

Editor: What proportion of Polycom endpoints sales in EMEA were HD in 2007 and what do you estimate they will be in 2008 and 2009?

Steve: Whilst we have not broken out the figures for HD systems shipped at this time, we are very heartened by the take up of the new product, and particularly the recent industry report which ranked the HDX 9000^TM platform as the leading product in the market. We expect this sort of very positive report to provide further incentives to people to come and experience these next generation systems.

Editor: Polycom offers videoconferencing infrastructure products that facilitate convergence of voice, video and data on one telecom network. Are most European potential customers committed to make this transition?

Steve: This is an area which is causing great interest in the industry and Polycom is well positioned to take advantage of this, with its wide range of products, allowing Polycom voice and video products to work seamlessly with presence and IM application from Microsoft and IBM and with VoIP application from Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco and many others.

Editor: How did Polycom revenues perform in EMEA in 2007 and what are the channel partners telling you about the prospects for 2008?

Steve: We have not yet reported our Q4 result for 2007 so we do not have the data for the whole year yet, but I can say that for the first three quarters of 2007 our revenue growth has been strong. It was stated on our corporate earnings call last month that EMEA revenue for Q3 grew 46% on a year-on-year basis. This is a continuing indication of the raising awareness and acceptance of the market for Polycom's video and voice collaboration products.

Editor: What are the major changes you would like to bring to Polycom's EMEA operations in 2008 and 2009?

Steve: Get closer to customers, drive awareness of the business benefits of collaborative applications and awareness of Polycom's unique position in delivering these benefits.

Editor: How many channel partners does Polycom have in EMEA and what will be done to support them even more strongly in 2008?

Steve: Polycom is unique in having an extensive network of partners throughout Europe, Middle East and Africa, and I am committed to building the Polycom infrastructure so that sales, marketing, services and logistics, are all even more closely aligned to deliver great products efficiently and effectively to our partners and onward to their clients.

Launching products more effectively to the partners and ensuring that they are trained and in possession of the most up-to-date demonstration equipment is all part of the program to make our partners even more successful in 2008.

At a recent gathering of EMEA partners we learnt a lot about the topics that are important for them going forward, and we will be addressing these over the coming months.

Editor: How does one become an approved Polycom channel or VAR? Is it tough to qualify?

Steve: It is a tough procedure and there is a lot to learn, but for a good reason. We want our partners to be knowledgeable in the positioning of Polycom solutions in their markets; we want them to be skilled in the deployment of the solution and in after-sales care for the customer. Thus, we have developed a program of training, both in sales and marketing skills and more technology related areas, which are available to all partners from a number of training locations around EMEA. However, getting certified is not the end; as the lead innovator in the industry we encourage our partners back to training on a regular basis so that they can keep up with the latest developments.

Editor: What is your message for 2008 to your existing and new Polycom partners in EMEA?

Steve: This is a time of unprecedented interest in the area of collaborative applications.

Now it is responsibility of Polycom and its partners to ensure that the market knows of the power of the Polycom solutions, and that we continue to improve the mechanisms to deploy, manage and maintain global deployments of the solutions. Polycom will deliver the innovation and market leadership that has been the hallmarks of its presence over the last 15 years, and we look forward to working with our partners to deliver the next levels of customer adoption, usage, satisfaction and thereby deliver industry growth that is now firmly within our sights.

Editor: Steve, thank you very much for these valuable insights.

Source: www.VCInsight.com