Lucent Technologies and Polycom Announce Agreements to Provide End-to-End Conferencing Solutions
PR Newswire - April 28, 1998 14:40
SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Lucent Technologies
(NYSE: LU) and Polycom(R), Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) announced today here at the DVC
'98 Spring Conference they have signed agreements creating a strategic
alliance that will help both companies deliver total conferencing solutions to
their customers.
The new agreements, which build on the companies' existing agreement for
audio conferencing products, outline distribution arrangements for additional
Polycom and Lucent collaborative conferencing products.
Lucent will resell the industry-acclaimed Polycom ViewStation(TM) group
video conferencing system and the Polycom ShowStation(R) IP integrated
conference projector as part of its suite of collaborative conferencing
solutions.
In a private label arrangement, Polycom will make Lucent's award-winning
MultiPoint Conferencing Unit (MCU) available to Polycom's video and data
conferencing resellers around the world. The companies also plan to work
together to ensure maximum interoperability between their current and future
collaborative conferencing products.
"Leveraging our long-standing relationship with Lucent in the audio
conferencing arena, we are now poised to provide the total conferencing
solution for customers," said Brian Hinman, Polycom's chairman and CEO. "Our
relationship with Lucent gives us the opportunity to provide flexible,
easy-to-use conferencing products to further enhance the customer's
conferencing experience."
"We're pleased to extend our existing relationship with Polycom to bring
the next generation of collaborative conferencing solutions to our customers,"
said Dean Harvey, general manager, Collaborative Conferencing, Lucent
Technologies. "Our customers now have access to a fuller range of solutions
to improve team productivity and reduce the costly overhead of inefficient
meetings."
Polycom's ViewStation, which includes ease-of-use features from auto-ISDN
setup to an entirely graphical user interface, delivers superior performance
and full-feature functionality at a very affordable price. Named "Most
Significant Advance in Teleconferencing in 1997" at the TeleCon XVII trade
show, ViewStation provides 15-30 frames per second high-quality video and a
voice-tracking camera as a standard feature. It includes the industry's first
embedded Web server in a video conferencing system, providing easy access for
remote system management and Microsoft(R) Powerpoint(R) presentations.
Offering unprecedented ease of use and functionality for group data
conferencing, Polycom's award-winning ShowStation IP conference projector
provides presentation, collaboration and communications capabilities to fully
support both local and remote meeting participants. As the first projector to
communicate over the Internet, ShowStation IP allows instantaneous
conferencing projection and modification of documents and data, including
Microsoft Office97(R) files, in full color and high resolution to meeting
participants anywhere in the world. ShowStation IP is as easy to use as a
standard overhead projector.
Lucent's MCU is an H.320-based voice, data and video conferencing bridge
that allows users to have worldwide, multi-party face-to-face conferences with
up to 16 parties on the same screen at once. The MCU includes industry-leading
features such as Continuous Presence Plus, a capability that shows multiple
sites on the same screen, and SpeedMatching, which allows endpoints
transporting video at different rates of speed to carry on a video conference.
Lucent's MCU supports the emerging H.263 video standard and incorporates the
H.320 Translator, allowing H.263 endpoints to maintain their improved quality
while communicating with endpoints using the existing H.261 standard.
Lucent's MCU is used by major service providers, government organizations
and commercial customers throughout the world. It won Network World's
1997 Blue Ribbon for "providing the best features for network managers,
conference operators and end users."
Polycom's ViewStation and ShowStation IP will be available to Lucent's
customers through its direct sales channels, initially in the United States
and Canada, in May 1998. The Polycom-branded version of Lucent's MCU will be
available to Polycom's customers through its sales channels in July 1998.
For more information on Lucent's collaborative conferencing solutions
-- including the MCU, the ViewStation and the ShowStation IP -- customers in
the United States may call Lucent Technologies' Video technical center in
Denver, Colo., at 888-345-4200, prompt 1. Customers outside the United States
should contact their local Lucent representative. Information is also
available at lucent.com.
Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., designs, builds
and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications
systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and
microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the research and
development arm of the company. For more information about Lucent
Technologies, visit its web site at lucent.com.
As a teleconferencing industry leader, Polycom develops, manufactures and
markets a full range of high-quality group audio, data and video conferencing
products. Polycom's innovative, award-winning teleconferencing products
provide customers with high performance and ease of use at an affordable
price. For additional information, call 800-POLYCOM or 408-526-9000 or visit
the Polycom web site at www.polycom.com.
NOTE: Polycom and the Polycom logo design and Showstation are registered
trademarks and ViewStation is a trademark of Polycom, Inc. in the United
States and various countries. Microsoft, Microsoft Office97 and Powerpoint
are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
SOURCE Polycom Inc.
/CONTACT: Mitch Montagna of Lucent Technologies, 908-953-5707, or
mmontagna@lucent.com; or Sue O'Neil of Polycom, Inc., 408-474-2746, or
soneil@polycom.com/
/Web site: lucent.com
/Web site: polycom.com
(PLCM LU) |
