The VAR Guy

Unified communications vendor Polycom is thinking small with its latest telepresence system — small environments and a small price tag.

Forgive The VAR Guy for looking tired and bloated. He’s packing on the pounds in the Dominican Republic at the Kaspersky Lab Partner Conference, where food is all inclusive and the restaurants never seem to close. If our resident blogger would stop eating and start blogging, he would have written the following six entries for the week ending Feb. 12, 2010.

It’s a thing of beauty when two major vendors collaborate to offer a solution that actually provides such value that it can practically sell itself. In theory, Polycom and Microsoft just may have done exactly that. The UC vendor and software behemoth have joined forces to offer Polycom Conferencing for Outlook, a unified communications service that integrates with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook to incorporate voice and video conferencing into meetings. Here are the details.

Polycom has partnered with VoIP software app vendor BroadSoft to build a hosted solution that enables solution providers to offer unified communication (UC) services in the cloud. It’s the latest in a string of Polycom partner moves. Here are the details.

Polycom has announced sweeping changes to its channel program (new program), installing tiered levels of partnership and certifications — a move that puts it squarely in line to challenge Cisco-Tandberg in the UC space. The Polycom Choice Program, which is slated to launch April 1, enables partners to specialize in certain vertical markets or product areas, such as telepresence, unified communications, voice over IP and video solutions. Here are some more perspectives.

A quick heads up: F5 Networks has tapped Gary Abad as VP of North America Channel Sales. He reports to global channel chief Dean Darwin. Here are some fast details about the news.

Time for The VAR Guy to eat a little crow. A few days ago, he pointed out all the challenges facing Telepresence (next-generation video conferencing) and one particular vendor’s struggles (Polycom). Now, for the flip side of the story: Polycom and Alteva have an intriguing partnership that pushes TelePresence into small business. Here’s the scoop.

Once again, the IT pundits were wrong. Lots of “experts” said the video conferencing and TelePresence industries would enjoy a boom during the economic bust. The reasoning: Executives are cutting business travel to save money, and opting instead for video conferencing and TelePresence. But here’s the problem: Not all video conferencing companies are built equally. Consider the situation of Polycom (a big, established player) vs. LifeSize Communications (a nimble start-up).