Siemens forges alliance with Polycom to offer conferencing solutions

To have a first mover advantage in the IP ready audio and video conferencing segment, Siemens and US-based Polycom have forged a strategic alliance in India to offer advanced IP ready solutions. Siemens has also tied-up with West Bengal government to provide these solutions. The company announced this tie-up on February 8, 2002.

Siemens and Polycom will combine their expertise in the convergence of interactive voice, video and data communications in order to provide premium-quality IP ready audio and video conferencing solutions over India's fast emerging high-speed networks.

Peter Gartenberg, Executive VP (Information and Communication Networks), Enterprise Networks, Siemens Ltd, said, "Indian enterprises in all corporate and government sectors recognize the advantages of audio and video conferencing as a huge travel cost saver and collaboration and productivity enhancer."

The partnership is the latest in a series of business expansion initiatives that Siemens has launched in the past year to further its market dominance in the interactive convergence solutions market. The company has pioneered most of the cutting-edge solutions in the enterprise networks in India, starting with the first IP ready EPABXs, the first plug and play call center suite and now the entire all-in-one IP-ready Polycom audio and video conferencing solutions.

These conferencing solutions include Polycom ViewStation, Polycom ViewStation SP 128 and SP 384, Polycom Viewstation FX, Polycom View Station MP, Polycom ViaVideo, Polycom VS 4000, Polycom SoundStation, Polycom SoundStation Premier and Polycom SoundPoint Pro Se-225. 

Since demand for video conferencing equipment has been on the upturn, driven by immense improvement in telecom infrastructure, availability of ISDN lines, greater IP-bandwidths and leased lines at competitive rates many state governments are building- up video-conferencing networks to link district head quarters with the state capital to facilitate better governance. 

Keeping this in mind, Siemens has also tied-up with West Bengal government. The company will provide the necessary infrastructure required to link various cities with the state capital. The company has not disclosed any detail about the deal.

"Conferencing is now seen as a securer method to transact business and governance than the old travel and face-to- face meeting model. In India, where travel is relatively expensive and network costs have fallen dramatically, the ROI on a video conference network is rapidly achieved," Gartenberg added. 

Rahul Gupta

Mumbai

(CNS)