Polycom and Telecom join forces for VaaS
Telecom to use Polycom's RealPresence platform to deliver video-as-a-service to business customers
By Reseller News Staff, Auckland | Thursday, 18 October 2012Polycom has just announced that the Telecom Group in New Zealand will use the vendor's RealPresence platform to provide video-as-a-service to its business customers in the country.
Telecom will utilise the Polycom's RealPresence platform to power both Gen-i (Telecom’s ICT services
division) and Telecom hosted video offerings.
“In today’s competitive market, New Zealand businesses are tasked with finding the most efficient
and cost-effective ways to accelerate operations,” says Leanne Buer, Acting GM Marketing, Gen-i
Australasia. “We work alongside a broad range of corporate, government and business customers who
are looking for new ways to connect with customers and staff who are on the move or working remotely.
With our new cloud-based Video as a Service offering, in partnership with Polycom, we are making it
easier and more affordable for our customers to deploy video across their organisations. It’s as simple-to-
use as setting up a mobile phone service,” she added.
“Organisations have seen such strong results with on-premise video collaboration and they’re now
looking to expand that face-to-face collaborative power via the cloud or in a hybrid private (on premises)
and public cloud model. Delivering video as a service offering on a pay-for-use model vastly reduces
the up-front investment to almost nothing, so organisations can begin to reap the benefits of video
collaboration as fast and as inexpensively as possible,” says Gary Denman, Polycom's managing director for Australia and New Zealand. “Polycom’s goal is to make it possible for everyone to use video as their
preferred way to collaborate – easily, reliably, and securely – no matter where they are. Working with
service providers such as Telecom Group is instrumental to achieve this goal of video ubiquity.”
Free Alternatives
Why wouldn't a small business just use Skype or even better http://faceme.com/ (An award winning NZ Company founded by ex Telecom staff)?
Faceme doesn't require equipment or software.
Probably doesn't require businesses to sign a big-ass contract either.
This product would have been useful 5 years ago, however technology and the cloud model has disrupted a bunch of stuff and one of those is S/ME video collaboration alternatives to hardware based solutions.
Posted by Anonymous at 06:44 on October 19, 2012
Why wouldn't a small business just use Skype or even better http://faceme.com/ (An award winning NZ Company founded by ex Telecom staff)?
Faceme doesn't require equipment or software.
Probably doesn't require businesses to sign a big-ass contract either.
This product would have been useful 5 years ago, however technology and the cloud model has disrupted a bunch of stuff and one of those is S/ME video collaboration alternatives to hardware based solutions.
Posted by Anonymous at 06:44 on October 19, 2012
Free Alternatives
Faceme would have been an equal choice or better, however ex Telecom employees that have succeeded outside Telecom are often viewed by those who remain with a combination of suspicion, envy and downright antagonism.
Not saying this is the case with Faceme.
Posted by Anonymous at 01:28 on October 21, 2012
Faceme would have been an equal choice or better, however ex Telecom employees that have succeeded outside Telecom are often viewed by those who remain with a combination of suspicion, envy and downright antagonism.
Not saying this is the case with Faceme.
Posted by Anonymous at 01:28 on October 21, 2012
"Free" Alternatives
I am a big fan off Faceme and the other progressive solutions offered by clever and proactive NZ businesses, but this VaaS service is exactly as you describe the disrupters being; a cloud model. If video is going to progressively replace voice in NZ as the preferred B2B & B2C comm's method then this will need scalability, interoperability and carrier grade interconnect to properly take hold; this solution is exactly the first step in that direction.
Video is no longer just about businesses communicating with themselves, it is about businesses communicating with their customers; combined with the recently launched Polycom CloudAXIS, SMB's with customers using Skype will soon be able to scale these kind of solutions to engage with them as well.
As to "Free" ask any large network administrator just how free Skype actually is and I am sure you will get a different perspective.
Posted by Anonymous at 07:17 on October 19, 2012
I am a big fan off Faceme and the other progressive solutions offered by clever and proactive NZ businesses, but this VaaS service is exactly as you describe the disrupters being; a cloud model. If video is going to progressively replace voice in NZ as the preferred B2B & B2C comm's method then this will need scalability, interoperability and carrier grade interconnect to properly take hold; this solution is exactly the first step in that direction.
Video is no longer just about businesses communicating with themselves, it is about businesses communicating with their customers; combined with the recently launched Polycom CloudAXIS, SMB's with customers using Skype will soon be able to scale these kind of solutions to engage with them as well.
As to "Free" ask any large network administrator just how free Skype actually is and I am sure you will get a different perspective.
Posted by Anonymous at 07:17 on October 19, 2012
"Free" Alternatives
under UFB where 100mbps can be provided at a reasonable price Skype traffic will cost almost nothing at all.
Expect Skype functionality to grow exponentially - they already have the best codec available and with all these local peering points going in, the performance will exceed that of Gen-i WAN by a huge margin dollar for dollar.
The WAN thing will be replaced by UFB internet with security add-ons for most customers. VC / TP and collaboration will just be an app in the public (internet) cloud, and will be part of a suite of service provided by ebay / google / msft / skype etc.
Posted by Anonymous at 07:54 on October 19, 2012
under UFB where 100mbps can be provided at a reasonable price Skype traffic will cost almost nothing at all.
Expect Skype functionality to grow exponentially - they already have the best codec available and with all these local peering points going in, the performance will exceed that of Gen-i WAN by a huge margin dollar for dollar.
The WAN thing will be replaced by UFB internet with security add-ons for most customers. VC / TP and collaboration will just be an app in the public (internet) cloud, and will be part of a suite of service provided by ebay / google / msft / skype etc.
Posted by Anonymous at 07:54 on October 19, 2012
"Free" Alternatives
The best codec available is H264SVC, something Polycom has just given away royalty free to the entire industry... Including Microsoft the owner of Skype. Go and have a read about CloudAXIS from Polycom if you want to see how all this is going to hang together.
Also, you do realise right? that all of those solutions you list that are going to be provided in the "cloud" are actually powered by exactly this kind of infrastructure... It may suprise you to discover that IT clouds are made up of a bit more than water vapour.
TNZ is just one of the first to execute... as the national carrier it is afterall already the lions share of our cloud.
Posted by Anonymous at 01:09 on October 20, 2012
The best codec available is H264SVC, something Polycom has just given away royalty free to the entire industry... Including Microsoft the owner of Skype. Go and have a read about CloudAXIS from Polycom if you want to see how all this is going to hang together.
Also, you do realise right? that all of those solutions you list that are going to be provided in the "cloud" are actually powered by exactly this kind of infrastructure... It may suprise you to discover that IT clouds are made up of a bit more than water vapour.
TNZ is just one of the first to execute... as the national carrier it is afterall already the lions share of our cloud.
Posted by Anonymous at 01:09 on October 20, 2012
"Free" Alternatives
Surely you are joking, the best codec available. Why is it ? Skype is now owned by Microsoft. Expect them to operate a business model that fits with the strategy of their other collaboration products such as Lync. After all Skype has never made a profit. As for Faceme they operate in a proprietary browser environment. Get them to demo to you to one of the millions of standards based VC systems without a add on gateway. If they can yet?
Posted by Bill at 10:07 on October 19, 2012
Surely you are joking, the best codec available. Why is it ? Skype is now owned by Microsoft. Expect them to operate a business model that fits with the strategy of their other collaboration products such as Lync. After all Skype has never made a profit. As for Faceme they operate in a proprietary browser environment. Get them to demo to you to one of the millions of standards based VC systems without a add on gateway. If they can yet?
Posted by Bill at 10:07 on October 19, 2012
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Congratulations to Polycom on this NZ opportunity.
During my OE decades I worked with them in Europe and their technologies and innovative partnering methods are excellent. The RealPresence and Telecom technologies will bring video collaboration as a standard meeting process for businesses across NZ.
We all know that your attention is diverted into answering emails and such during a standard teleconference. The addition of video into a meeting keeps the attention and focus onto the topics which results in shorter and more efficient meetings.
I look forward to being invited to my first Video Meeting in this country.
Posted by Wendy McKenzie at 12:04 on October 19, 2012
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