Polycom and HP Announce Alliance
HP and Polycom, Inc. have recently announced their entry into a definitive agreement, giving Polycom the assets of HP's Visual Collaborative business. With this acquisition, HP and Polycom have established a strategic relationship, where Polycom acts as an exclusive partner to HP for telepresence and certain video UC solutions, while also making Polycom's video applications available for HP's WebOS platform.
The alliance gives Polycom HP's installed base of visual collaboration products and technology, extending its leadership in the Unified Communications and Collaboration market, and broadens the strategic relationship of HP and Polycom while expanding the UC solutions that HP has to offer.
As per the agreement, Polycom will provide expertise in software technology and UC infrastructure, while HP will provide its expertise and leadership in go-to-market strategies for UC solutions, as well as helping resell Polycom's UC solutions. With HP's networking scale and global reach combined with Polycom's expertise in video conferencing, customers are provided with world-class video and UC solutions through a combination of Polycom infrastructure and HP networking and systems, allowing customers to capitalize on networking's importance as the foundation for quality video experiences and use HP's global services for turnkey communications solutions.
"The Polycom/HP strategic alliance is a win-win for the two companies and their customers," says Jim Burton, co-founder of UCStrategies. "For several years I have thought HP may acquire Polycom but with Polycom's high market cap this 'reverse acquisition' and strategic alliance makes more since for the two companies and their share holders. Together they are a formable competitor to Cisco/Tandberg offerings."
According to John Bartlett of NetForecast, Inc. and UCStrategies," Mr. Miller was quoted a few months ago as saying that Polycom is not looking to be acquired but was rather looking to make acquisitions. This announcement certainly shows that he intends to follow that path. This agreement indicates that Polycom is following their stated path of working with strong partners and providing an open-standards video conferencing environment."
John continues, "I wonder how this announcement will affect the deployment of H.264SVC technology in the industry. We saw earlier announcements from Polycom about their intentions to develop SVC, and we know that HP has a licensing arrangement with Vidyo, an SVC pioneer. This partnership could indicate an acceleration of SVC development and deployment to bring consumers the advantages that SVC offers."
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2011. For more information, visit www.polycom.com or www.hp.com.